“Dana White’s trying to have that disqualification loss to Matt Hamill overturned. I get it for marketing purposes.”
Other than a No Contest to Daniel Cormier at UFC 214, the only blemish on Jon Jones’ professional career stems from 2009, when referee Steve Mazzagatti disqualified ‘Bones’ for landing a series of illegal elbows on retired UFC veteran Matt Hamill at The Ultimate Fighter 10 Finale.
Jones has long protested the loss, and it appears the UFC is making efforts to have that loss overturned to market their pound-for-pound phenom as an undefeated fighter.
Former UFC middleweight champion turned podcast host and commentator Michael Bisping is in agreement with the UFC and understands why Dana White wants his flagship star to have a clean record.
“Love the guy, don’t love the guy you gotta admire what he does inside the Octagon,” podcast host Bisping said on a recent episode of Believe You Me (h/t Fernando Quiles of BJPenn.com). “And technically undefeated, Dana White’s trying to have that disqualification loss to Matt Hamill overturned. I get it for marketing purposes. If I’m Dana White I want probably my best fighter to be labeled as undefeated. Because for those people that don’t know, Jones has a disqualification loss on his record to Matt Hamill in a fight that he was totally dominating. He was destroying Matt Hamill, he got carried away and he did a downward elbow.
“He [Hamill] was already getting the absolute living daylights beat out of him. So of course Matt Hamill’s gonna respond, well hold on. I think the thing was they asked him and he never responded. Well the guy’s deaf. No wonder he never responded, he’s gotta read the lips. And I’m not trying to be funny or be a d*ck about it. The referee said ‘I was asking are you OK?’ And he never responded, well the guy is profoundly deaf. And I’m not trying to make fun of him as I say, it’s a real factor. And then he had the sh*t kicked out of him, he was covered in blood, there was no way he was gonna win that fight. So of course he was gonna say, ‘yeah I don’t feel good.’ So the referee disqualified Jones. So I kind of understand it from Dana’s perspective.”
Jones, the reigning light heavyweight champion, will defend his title against Brazilian slugger Thiago Santos at UFC 239. The highly anticipated pay-per-view, which also features a co-headlining championship bout between Amanda Nunes and Holly Holm, takes place this Saturday, July 6 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.