Jon Jones may not be fighting on that special UFC White House card.
To recap, Jon Jones announced his MMA retirement last month and relinquished the UFC Heavyweight title over to Tom Aspinall. Just two weeks later, the 38-year-old stated that he re-entered the anti-doping testing pool. Since his decision to fight again, Jones has been talking about wanting to challenge the UFC Heavyweight Champion on the upcoming UFC White House Special in 2026, though it wasn’t clear how Dana White felt about Jones headlining that card.
That all changed on Saturday.
During the press-fight press conference, White laid out why he has no interest in Jon Jones headlining the upcoming show.
“It’s not even about him winning the belt,” White said. “You know how I felt about him. I just can’t risk putting him in big positions in a big spot and have something go wrong, especially the White House card.”
This response is hardly surprising. Jones held back the heavyweight division with his indecisiveness on facing Aspinall for the belt. It’s still a mystery why he suddenly opted to retire instead of fighting Tom. It’s even more of a mystery why he quickly changed his mind and took back his retirement two weeks later.
Now anything could change. The show isn't until July 4th, so White could possibly change his mind. But the UFC CEO isn't even thinking about the White House show right now.
“That fight’s a year away,” White said. “So I’m not thinking about anything right now. The landscape will change so much by next 4th of July, who knows what’s going to happen. Who knows who’s going to be on the card. What the main event will be or who will hold all the titles. Everything could be completely different so it’s not even worth thinking about it right now.”
But Jones did respond to White’s comments and he’s quite disappointed that the UFC CEO won’t give him the opportunity to fight at the big show, even though Dana White is quite justified in his response.
Will Jon Jones fight again? Only time will tell.