If Jon Jones is only coming out of retirement to compete on the UFC White House card in 2026, he might want to start making new plans.<\/p>\n
The now-former UFC heavyweight champion recently called it a career, only to quickly change his mind after President Donald Trump announced plans to host a fight at the White House as part of his America 250 celebration next July. While logistics for the event are still being worked out, UFC CEO Dana White has said the card is expected to take place on the White House lawn, and he\u2019s preparing for a meeting with Trump in less than two weeks to start mapping out specific plans.<\/p>\n
Dozens of fighters have called to fight on that card, but White has repeatedly shut down Jones\u2019 request due to his history of outside-the-cage issues that have forced the UFC to make changes to events where he was scheduled to headline. From arrests to failed drug tests to injuries and even turning down a short-notice opponent, Jones has dropped out of his fair share of main events, which is why White won\u2019t even consider him for such an important and historic card.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me ask you, what do you think Jon would do in the next couple of months that would make me trust putting him on the White House card?\u201d White said. \u201cSo I already said that I don\u2019t trust him, and you\u2019re asking me what could he do for me to trust him in the next three months? You don\u2019t trust him! I don\u2019t talk to him either. I haven\u2019t talked to him at all. If I had to make odds, it\u2019s a billion-to-one that I put Jon Jones on the White House card.\u201d<\/p>\n
That says a lot considering McGregor hasn\u2019t fought in over four years and his most recent matchup with Michael Chandler was canceled after the Irish superstar broke his toe in the weeks leading up to that fight. McGregor was never rescheduled after that, although he recently started undergoing drug testing again<\/a> under the UFC\u2019s anti-doping program.<\/p>\n Ever since the White House card was announced, White has been adamant he won\u2019t even consider matchmaking until sometime in 2026, which means talk about Jones, McGregor, or anybody else competing on that event is premature.<\/p>\n Still, White seems more than confident in saying Jones won\u2019t be getting a call from the UFC when plans start coming together to book the main event for July 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Jon Jones is only coming out of retirement to compete on the UFC White House card in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-75148","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-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75148","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=75148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}