https://youtu.be/jpH-POUro-s
On Tuesday, UFC President Dana White appeared as a guest on “The Dan Le Batard Show” to promote this Saturday’s debut event in the state of New York at the world-famous Madison Square Garden arena.
In addition to discussion about Saturday’s historic event headlined by Conor McGregor vs. Eddie Alvarez, as well as talk of Ronda Rousey’s long-awaited Octagon return next month, the UFC boss touched on the news that surfaced this week regarding former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon “Bones” Jones.
For those who missed it, USADA handed down a one-year suspension to Jon Jones as a result of his positive drug test leading up to the fight he had scheduled against Daniel Cormier at UFC 200 back in July, until he was ultimately pulled from the card due to the drug test issues.
Regarding the year that Jones will be sitting on the sidelines, White claimed that it will definitely cost arguably the most talented performer in UFC history on a number of levels.
“Yeah, he’s definitely one of the guy’s who could have gone down as one of the greatest ever,” White told LeBatard during his appearance on the show on Tuesday. “If you look at all the time he’s been out, he probably would have defended the title a few times. He might be fighting at heavyweight right now, who knows, but, hey man…when you do what this guy has done, you’ve got to pay the price.”
White continued, “We’ve lost a lot of money, left a lot of money on the table and obviously his legacy is…I’ll tell you this, too…in the history of combat sports, nobody’s ever taken this much time off and come back and looked like they did when they were younger. Even [Muhammad] Ali. So it’s going to be interesting.”
The UFC President was then asked for a ballpark figure in terms of the amount of money Jones will be “leaving on the table” as a result of his legal issues and now his drug test issues / one-year USADA suspension.
“It’s got to be…who knows,” White said. “I mean, if he moved up to heavyweight and fought for the heavyweight championship, it could have been massive. It could be anywhere from $15-20 million.”
For more on USADA’s one-year suspension of Jon Jones, read their official release from earlier this week by clicking here. Additionally, you can click here to read Jones’ statement on the matter, and/or click here to read the statement released by the UFC regarding Jones’ suspension.
H/T to MMAFighting.com for transcribing the above Dana White quotes from The Dan LeBatard Show. You can listen to White’s appearance on the show via the YouTube player embedded above. The Dana White interview begins at approximately the 24:00 mark of the video.