remains clouded in uncertainty<\/a> after the anticlimactic conclusion to his saga with UFC heavyweight king Tom Aspinall, which began all the way in 2023.<\/p>\nJones\u2019 desire to return from his short, problematic retirement has given the UFC boss pause, and while White acknowledged speaking to Jones as recently as this past Friday, he wasn\u2019t ready to shed light on where things stand.<\/p>\n
“I got nothing to say about it,” White said of Jones. “I don’t know, I just talked to him last night.”<\/p>\n
Jones\u2019 absence, though, didn\u2019t stop White from invoking the superstar in a completely different context \u2014 one tied to the late-notice heroics of Ethyn Ewing, who scored an impressive upset against Malcolm Wellmaker at UFC 322. In making it clear that stepping up on a moment\u2019s notice isn\u2019t something that can be manufactured, White once again channeled his perpetual disdain for Jones’ infamous UFC 151 cancellation in 2012.<\/p>\n
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“You’re either that guy or you’re not,\u201d White said of Ewing\u2019s situation. \u201cIt’s not something like, ‘That guy did it. I should probably do it, too.’ You’re built differently than everybody else is.<\/p>\n
“Even Jon Jones. You guys know how I feel about Jon Jones. Jon Jones turned down a short-notice fight against Chael Sonnen because his team told him to. That’s one of the most f***ing \u2014 I still get mad when I think about how f***ing dumb that was.”<\/p>\n
The candor is classic White \u2014 equal parts praise and fire. And if anything, it underscores how unpredictable this White House card may become. With Makhachev in the mix, Jones continuing to plead his case, and the UFC intent on stacking a truly historic lineup, the next several months should prove to be fascinating theater ahead of one of the promotion\u2019s boldest nights ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UFC\u2019s historic White House event continues to take shape, and as always, UFC CEO Dana White is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,10359,641,23591,1866,638,82,640,1971],"class_list":{"0":"post-288712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-dana-white","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-islam-makhachev","13":"tag-jon-jones","14":"tag-mma","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-ufc","17":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}