{"id":775236,"date":"2026-07-02T22:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T22:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/775236\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T22:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T22:58:08","slug":"jon-jones-celebrates-impact-of-ufc-white-house-it-makes-me-feel-a-lot-more-important","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/775236\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Jones celebrates impact of UFC White House: \u2018It makes me feel a lot more important\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jon Jones isn\u2019t holding any ill will towards the UFC and Dana White for leaving him off of the historic UFC White House event.<\/p>\n

Following a retirement announcement in June 2025, Jones swiftly reversed course when President Donald Trump announced plans for the White House card. The multiple-time UFC champion wanted to fight at the event, only to be shot down by White, who has said Jones was \u201cnever, ever, ever\u201d in consideration to be included.<\/p>\n

Despite not being directly involved, Jones is thrilled with how the June 14 played out and what it meant for MMA as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cI absolutely loved it,\u201d Jones told Red Corner MMA.<\/a> \u201cIt really showed me\u2014it humbled me and it just showed me that our sport is at a prestigious level right now. When I first started MMA, we weren\u2019t allowed to compete in New York State. People looked at it as being taboo, a very weird thing to do. Now, it\u2019s a very honorable sport to be a part of. Probably one of the most honorable sports to be a part of right now in history.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m grateful to be considered one of the best in the sports history. It makes me feel a lot more important since the White House card.\u201d<\/p>\n

UFC White House was capped off by Justin Gaethje scoring a dramatic knockout win over Ilia Topuria to unify the interim and undisputed lightweight titles. It was the first loss for Topuria, who also suffered facial fractures in both orbital bones and faces an uncertain return timetable.<\/p>\n

Jones has also suffered defeat just once in his illustrious career\u2014a disqualification loss to Matt Hamill in a bout Jones was dominating\u2014so he understands the pressure of being viewed as unbeatable. Outside of the cage, Jones has stumbled multiple times, including arrests for a hit-and-run, a DWI, and a domestic violence incident.<\/p>\n

He empathizes with Topuria\u2019s rapid rise to stardom.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you become a UFC champion, you become more famous right away,\u201d Jones said. \u201cYou get invited to dinner, there\u2019s the girls and there\u2019s the money and there\u2019s all these new friends. There\u2019s just so much that gets thrown at you and if you\u2019re not grounded enough, if you don\u2019t have a strong enough circle and team, it\u2019s easy to get distracted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have fallen victim to all of the things that a young athlete can. The partying, getting in trouble, all of it. But in my situation I had a team that always held me to a high standard and they never allowed me to get discouraged by my downfalls and they just always encouraged me to just keep moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones fully expects Topuria to bounce back and praised him for his humble response following his loss to Gaethje. Topuria gave full credit to Gaethje,<\/a> writing, \u201cNo excuses. I had one of the best camps of my life. I came in sharp, prepared, and ready. Last night was your night. That\u2019s the nature of this game. Glory and pain walk side by side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just a few weeks shy of his 39th birthday, Jones used Topuria\u2019s current situation to reflect on his own career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always say making it to the UFC is fairly easy,\u201d Jones said. \u201cStaying in the UFC is very hard. And staying the UFC champion is almost impossible, so I\u2019m really honored and I\u2019m blessed for being able to do what I did in the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jon Jones isn\u2019t holding any ill will towards the UFC and Dana White for leaving him off of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-775236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775236","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=775236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}