Chael Sonnen went off on former opponent Jon Jones.
Former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones was recently booked on a charge of battery domestic violence. That arrest stemmed from a suspected incident that happened at a Las Vegas hotel the day after he was inducted into one of the wings of the UFC Hall of Fame.
Since then Jones has denied abusing his long-time intimate partner, who is the mother of his children, and claimed that he will quit drinking alcohol. Jones’ actions have been met with a slew of comments and opinions from those within the MMA industry.
Former UFC fighter Chael Sonnen, who fought Jones and coached The Ultimate Fighter opposite him in 2013, is among the latest to offer his thoughts.
Specifically, Sonnen reacted to news that Jones had been asked to leave Jackson WInkeljohn MMA, where Jones has trained for the lion’s share of his MMA career. Jones responded to this news by tweeting that he was heartbroken.
“Really hurts to lose the support of someone I respect so much,” wrote Jones — possibly referring to Mike Winkeljohn. Sonnen has seized on this now-deleted tweet, calling it “disgusting”.
“Jon put a tweet on this and he deleted it and it was just disgusting,” said Sonnen on his YouTube channel (ht sportskeeda). “The tweet was disgusting and he said, ‘it hurts really bad to have one of my coaches who I respect so much turn away from me, for the rest of the coaches going for that fight with me, we continue,’ and then he deleted it. The reason that tweet is disgusting is he used the word team. You have the most selfish guy in sport using the word team when convenient.”
Jones is currently scheduled to appear in court on October 26. It is not known if his MMA career, with the UFC or otherwise, will continue beyond this point.