The UFC 182: The Moment preview video‘s juxtaposition between a vibrant, young champion and an older, scarred lion can be more appreciated in hindsight. This moment for Jon Jones isn’t forced or rehearsed.
It’s a beautiful one that encapsulates what it truly means to reach up and grab the proverbial brass ring.
As the camera zooms in on the rugged features of older Jones’ face, he slowly looks away, cracking an efficacious smile. He then opens up about the moment that changed everything, when he defeated Mauricio “Shogun” Rua at UFC 128 to become the UFC light heavyweight champion in 2011.
The words trek from his heart, up through his chest and throat, before rolling off his tongue and sliding through his lips:
It was a feeling like everything I’d been through in life—the good and the bad—but mainly the bad, it was like it all led to that. I got to just channel all of the good and the bad and channel it into something that was beautiful. It was an awesome moment. I felt free. I felt better than what I was.
These were the naive thoughts of a 23-year-old from New York. But time changes us physically, and experience shapes us mentally. Jones quickly learned freedom, while being the best in the world, is a thought bound in irony.
When you’re on top, expectations and responsibilities are multiplied exponentially. People come out of the woodwork, feigning as your friend with luxurious gifts and worldly offers. The spotlight beams so brightly that it becomes hard to see the wolves standing two feet in front of you. Everything you say and do is dissected under a microscope and interpreted a million different ways.
One day, you wake up and realize you’re no longer a human being to most people. You’re just a piece of meat, a product to be consumed.
Jones has likely woken up by now at age 27, after being stripped of the title and indefinitely suspended from the UFC. A felony charge for an alleged hit-and-run put his fighting career on ice. As the light heavyweight king, he is now forced to sit on the sidelines and watch Anthony “Rumble” Johnson and Daniel Cormier fight Saturday for the same throne he called home for the last four years.
The spotlight swallowed Jones the moment he stepped from the shadows, forever trapping him in the belly of the beast.
Georges St-Pierre, one of the most beloved fighters in UFC history, vacated his UFC title and walked away from fighting indefinitely at age 32. Admittedly, he became overwhelmed with the pressure and stress of being a world champion, among other things.
But Jones was nothing like St-Pierre in the public eye. He wasn’t the French-speaking, complimentary guy in front of the media. His confidence brimmed to a point where it came off as arrogance to some. It probably didn’t help that he began his title run by dominating beloved legends Shogun Rua and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson.
Some people wanted a reason to dislike Jones to rid themselves of the typical hater label. They eventually got their wish when Rashad Evans, Jones’ former teammate, entered the picture, and the word “fake” was permanently attached to Jones like a bad high school nickname.
Looking back on the entire situation, when speaking with MMAFighting.com in an article by Marc Raimondi, Evans touched on the harsh realities of youth and fame:
Even though Jon does amazing things inside the cage, Jon is still young. You give somebody so young so much power, so much freedom, they don’t always make the right decisions. He’s human and sometimes people think things never catch up with them. Sometimes they catch up with you at the wrong time.
… Looking back and seeing my whole role in the situation, I didn’t handle everything right. [Jon is] one of my favorite fighters to watch. Even when he fights, I kind of root for the guy.
The wrong time for Jones appears to be when he allegedly ran a red light and smashed his rental vehicle into a pregnant woman’s car, per Raimondi. Witnesses claimed he ran from the scene after grabbing a handful of cash from his vehicle. Marijuana was found inside the car.
Serious missteps in Jones’ personal life, including this one, a failed drug test for cocaine and a DUI charge have replaced the image of the young fighter fans once rallied behind. It’s easy to forget the fighter who came to the rescue of an “old Spanish couple” by chasing down and apprehending their mugger, mere hours before his first UFC title fight.
Listen to the room eat up every word as Jones rehashes the story that nearly gave UFC President Dana White a heart attack.
Whatever happened to this version of Jones? When did everything go sideways?
A new champion will be crowned at UFC 187 on Saturday, but there is no questioning Jones is still the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
You can take away his title, strip him of his accomplishments and remove him from the UFC rankings. Through it all, Jones will still be the best fighter in the world. He will still be king. But the throne belongs to the UFC, and as a business, the powers that be have a right to choose who they want as the face of the company.
Jones is the king without a throne. Until he returns or a more polarizing figure comes along, nothing in the world will ever change that.
Jordy McElroy is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. He also is the MMA writer for FanRag Sports and co-founder of The MMA Bros.
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