{"id":158892,"date":"2025-09-21T13:40:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T13:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/158892\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T13:40:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T13:40:20","slug":"cormier-team-america-needs-winners-like-jones-on-the-white-house-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/158892\/","title":{"rendered":"Cormier: Team America needs winners like Jones on the White House card"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jon Jones may be the MMA GOAT, but he\u2019s not reliable enough<\/a> for UFC to book him on the promotion\u2019s upcoming 2026 White House card.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the official line repeatedly coming from big boss Dana White\u2019s lips. White has dealt with too many \u201cBones\u201d induced headaches over the years: UFC 151 getting cancelled<\/a> after Jones refused to fight a replacement opponent, UFC 200 losing Jones vs. Cormier 2 after Jon tested positive for steroids.<\/a> The whole Jones vs. Aspinall saga, which ended with Jones retiring<\/a> and relinquishing the title — which marks the fourth belt he\u2019s handed back to the promotion.<\/p>\n

Other than White, no one has been put through the ringer<\/a> over Jones drama more than Daniel Cormier, but \u201cDC\u201d still believes the UFC should let Jon compete on the June White House card. His reasoning? UFC is thin on winning Americans, and could use \u201cBones\u201d to beef up Team USA.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine if we\u2019re on the White House lawn and the Americans aren\u2019t winning fights,\u201d Cormier said on his YouTube channel. \u201cAnd that could happen. When the opening line for McGregor vs. Chandler comes out, Chandler is going to be a pretty substantial underdog, as he should be. Even though Conor hasn\u2019t fought forever, he\u2019ll still be the favorite to beat Michael Chandler.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if you put Jon Jones against Tom Aspinall for what everybody says, that Tom Aspinall is the guy to beat him, when that line opens, I bet Jon Jones is still going to be the favorite. He\u2019ll be the favorite to beat Tom Aspinall. He\u2019ll be the guy who\u2019s the world champion, or at least was the world champion before he vacated his title and retired. He\u2019ll still be the favorite to win that fight. I think you\u2019ve got to let him fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for how the UFC should deal with Jones\u2019 inconsistency?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you put some things in his contract that makes it very costly to not follow through,\u201d Cormier suggested. \u201cIf you put Jon Jones on the White House card, say something that happens in the law, and he has to be pulled from the card? $1 million. Say he just says he doesn\u2019t want to fight? $1 million.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSay he gets injured, then it should be less, as long as the injury can be proven. If the injury is proven, charge him nothing. He\u2019s just a normal fighter, who got injured in training camp. But you put these safeguards in place to make sure that he shows up there.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Jon Jones? If he wants to make it onto the White House card, make him work for it: there\u2019s no reason why he couldn\u2019t fight in February and June to prove he\u2019s engaged and reliable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jon Jones may be the MMA GOAT, but he\u2019s not reliable enough for UFC to book him on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-158892","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-mma","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}