UFC CEO Dana White called current heavyweight champion Jon Jones a “scumbag” and a “punk,” while former ZUFFA head cheese Lorenzo Fertitta referred to “Bones” as a “douche” in leaked text messages from 2014, which recently surfaced during an ongoing antitrust lawsuit against UFC.
No big deal.
That’s according to lifelong Jones hater and former two-division champion Daniel Cormier, who claims “bad employees” like Jones will sometimes have business owners hot under the collar. “Bones” has certainly been a promotional headache over the years, thanks to his personal “demons.”
And those pesky picograms.
“Some of his text messages were leaked in regards to Jon Jones. They were very mean text messages. Not nice. But I may have a little bit of a different view of this than most,” Cormier told Ben Askren on YouTube (transcribed by MMA News). “You and I both own businesses. We’ve all had bad employees. There’s different levels, right? In our business, it’s being late, maybe not showing up on time, maybe not always being tapped in to the practices. With Jones, it’s about being at the fight, doing the promotion, being easier to work with.”
Cormier made no mention of those other text messages between White and Fertitta, celebrating the “cut-throat, nasty business” employed during contract negotiations that was “taking the oxygen” from lightweight veterans Gilbert Melendez and Eddie Alvarez until they “tapped out.”
“In those moments when you have an employee that isn’t working in the way that you think, you say stuff!” Cormier continued. “It’s like, you say things about an employee that isn’t doing the things that you want. Do you believe for a second that Dana didn’t say that to Jon’s face? There’s no way he didn’t! He told him the exact same thing to his face. Then he goes and he talks to his friend, who is also his business partner, about the situation and says the exact same thing. Is it really that big a deal? Some of the stuff I’ve said to other people about people that work for me, it’s kinda crazy!”
I’m sure Cormier’s employees will be pleased to hear what he really thinks.
Jones, 36, is currently sidelined with a pectoral injury but is expected to make his Octagon return later this year, presumably against former UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic. That bout could mark the final appearance for “Bones,” unless he decides to stick around and settle this overseas score before calling it a career.