Jon Jones: I never asked for an absurd amount of money.
On Thursday during an interview with ESPN UFC President, Dana White revealed that Jon Jones was asking for an absurd sum of money for the fight against Francis Ngannou. White revealed, "For the amount of money [Jon Jones is] asking for, it’s not gonna happen. You couldn’t be asking for a more absurd amount of money at a worse time"
White's comments come after Jon Jones and Francis Ngannou started trading jibes at social media, teasing the possibility of a super-fight at heavyweight. Jon Jones apparently was very serious about the move. However, Jone earlier this month in an interview revealed that the UFC was not allowing him to move up as they refused to stand by their promise of renegotiating his plan.
Jon Jones hits back at Dana White
With Dana White's recent comments, Jon Jones took to Twitter to call out White. Jon Jones started by tweeting,
"It’s interesting to just sit here and watch your boss lie to the camera like this. We never discussed any increase in pay. Immediately the conversation was that I already made enough. I never made a number offer."
Jon Jones continued with his rant and said that he was actually done with the situation but that didn't mean he was going to allow White to lie to the fans. Jones even asked White to have the decency, to be honest. He tweeted,
"If you’re not going to change my contract for the heavyweight move, at least have the decency to be honest with the fans."
"I was over the situation, but I’m not gonna sit back and allow Dana to lie to the fans. I never asked for an absurd amount of money. That’s bullshit"
Jon Jones has been teasing a move to the heavyweight division for about half of his career now. However, something or other has always popped up not allowing the light-heavyweight champion to move up. It seemed that now he had finally found stability in his career and genuinely wanted to move up but the UFC simply wasn't interested in negotiating his contract.
To be very honest, denying that his timing wasn't a bit off would be wrong here. Jon Jones knows that this is one of the worst economic recessions the world has ever seen, maybe he could have waited for sometime before bringing up the idea of wanting a better contract.
The fate for the fight isn't sealed yet. Both Francis and Jon Jones seem to be interested. The fact that Jones is actively making public statements shows he isn't done with the idea just yet. It should be fun to see how the negotiations play out.