If you see former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones wandering a hotel lobby at six in the morning, try to avert your eyes with the same vigor as you would if Dr. Rene Belloq was opening the Ark of the Covenant.
Unless you want to take a trip to the moon.
That was a lesson Chael Sonnen and his mom learned in the wake of UFC 159, not long after Jones stopped “The American Gangster” in the first round of their 205-pound title fight. I’m not sure how “Bones” was so active after this grisly injury, but something tells me he was feeling no pain.
“Oh my goodness, this was great,” Sonnen told The MMA Hour (transcribed by MMA Fighting). “So Jon and I fight in New Jersey, and we get done [at] about 2:00 a.m. [and back] from the arena. The fight ends at 1:00 a.m. and I’ve got to get stitches, then there’s a post-fight press conference, so it’s 2:00 a.m., it’s a late night. I’ve got to be in the lobby at 6:00 a.m. the next morning to meet my mother to get to the airport to fly back to Portland. So Jon was up around the clock, and when I get to my mother in the lobby of the hotel at 6 a.m., there’s only my mother and Jon Jones there.
“Jon is wearing nothing but red sweatpants,” Sonnen continued. “He’s got no shirt, no hat, no shoes. When I say nothing, he’s wearing nothing but red sweatpants. And he’s visiting with her, and he’s being very polite. Jon excuses himself, my mother and I get our bags and we’re going to go. Jon takes the elevator up, then he walks out. It was one of those hotels where the doors are on the outside so you can see everything. And Jon yells down to her one last time to get her to look up — dropped his pants, mooned her, went into his room and went to sleep. She loved it.”
Prior to their UFC 159 showdown, Jones and Sonnen were opposing coaches on Season 17 of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF), where they became frenemies for life. That said, their already-rocky relationship may be put to the test after a turbulent 2021 for both fighters.
“Some people think that’s rude,” Sonnen said about the full moon. “My mother loved it. She bragged about that to her bunco group. She put a message on Facebook. She still laughs about that to this day, so I don’t want to hear people say that Jon was inappropriate. It was a funny moment. It’s up to my mother to decide. She liked it. I am still upset and annoyed with Jon. I think he would be at me too. But that doesn’t mean I can’t stand back and acknowledge, Jon’s a pretty funny guy.”
The 44 year-old Sonnen retired from active competition after losing to Lyoto Machida under the Bellator MMA banner back in summer 2019. As for the still-idle Jones, 34, he’s expected to make his heavyweight debut at some point in 2022.