I’m sure by now you’re familiar with the expression about time healing old wounds. You’ve also heard the one about beating a dead horse and let’s face it, every joke gets old after you’ve heard it 8,742 times.
Including the one about picograms.
Case in point: when was the last time you heard anyone complain about Henry Cejudo making weight? There was a time when promotion president, Dana White, threatened to ban him from the flyweight division and yet here we are, with “Triple C” the owner of championship titles in two different weight classes.
That’s because Cejudo got serious about his mixed martial arts (MMA) career, stayed active, and won big fights. That’s really the easiest way to escape a past punchline and something Jon Jones appears to be working toward.
“Bones” got himself into drug-testing trouble at UFC 200 back in 2016, then again the following year at UFC 214. The latter is likely responsible for his current status with United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and all that “pulsing” nonsense that is (still) causing positive results.
His upcoming light heavyweight title defense, which takes place in the UFC 239 pay-per-view (PPV) main event this Sat. night (July 6, 2019) inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, will mark his third fight in seven months.
Prior to that?
Three fights in four years. In fact, “Bones” (24-1, 1 NC) hasn’t competed more than once in a calendar year since 2013, thanks to a boatload of disciplinary problems. In MMA, you’re only as good as your last fight and well, when you hardly compete, there is nothing else to focus on except how much you fuck things up in your personal life.
And Jones has been like the jelly-of-the-month club (the gift that keeps on giving the whole year).
The picogram thing is a big deal and probably won’t dissipate as quickly as Jones, 31, would like. But also remember that no one is talking about that time he ran his Bentley into a utility pole, or when he got shitfaced and plowed into some pregnant girl and fled the scene.
Why?
Because this is cage fighting and it’s always going to end with Jones inside the Octagon doing his thing. A thing he does better than anyone in the world, which makes that other stuff easier to forget as time goes on.
I don’t know what the shelf life is on picogram jokes, but I do know that I would much rather talk about him fighting Francis Ngannou at heavyweight than what kind of supplements he’s taking. Hopefully Jones can hold up his end of the bargain and keep fighting at his current pace.
And keep winning.