Chael Sonnen believes there’s one key thing that former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is failing to understand about the criticism consistently directed his way.
Few aspects of life are inevitable. The things that are? Death, taxes, and Sonnen and Jones going back and forth.
Ever since the build-up to their Octagon collision at UFC 159 in 2013, which Jones won via first-round TKO, there has been no love lost between “Bones” and the now-MMA analyst. That’s been evident after just about every one of the controversies Jones has been in across the last few years.
Jon Jones and Chael Sonnen are back at it!
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— Submission Radio (@SubmissionRadio) March 29, 2021
Most recently, that involved Sonnen reacting to Jones’ latest run-in with the law, which saw him arrested and charged with battery domestic violence last September. Like many, Sonnen was quick to slam the GOAT contender for his actions.
However, Sonnen believes there’s a deeper meaning to his criticism of Jones, and it’s something he just doesn’t think the 34-year-old can grasp.
Sonnen: Jones Isn’t Smart Enough To Understand
During a recent video uploaded to his YouTube channel, Sonnen admitted that he perhaps heads the table when it comes to fans and pundits piling on in the aftermath of Jones’ indiscretions.
“You gotta understand, Jon’s no different than any other athlete. You’ve got your supporters and you’ve got your haters,” said Sonnen. “Now, a guy that’s on an undercard doesn’t have either. He evokes absolutely no emotion from the crowd. They don’t care if he wins, they don’t care if he loses, they don’t care if he fights tonight. When you’re a main eventer like Jon, you evoke a very strong emotion. Some of it is of tremendous support and some of it is tremendous, ‘I really want see you get beat.’
“Either way, Jon isn’t smart enough to understand. I might be leading the charge against Jon Jones, I might, I might be the leader of that band, but that band has a lot of members, and we’re all doing the same thing. Jon can’t seem to figure it out,” suggested Sonnen.
What is it that Jones can’t seem to calculate? According to Sonnen, it’s the fact that the criticism sent the way of the two-time UFC titleholder is done so to create the foundation for a comeback story.
In essence, Sonnen believes that if Jones is to rebound from his errors, he must be ‘buried’ by them first.
“We’re all talking about the missteps of Jon Jones. We’re all happy to bring up things like, ‘Well, he lost to Dominick Reyes, even if he won the decision.’ We’re really happy to take our shots at Jon where we can get them,” said Sonnen.
“But we’re doing it as a way of building to what we believe is going to be the much larger, the much more successful, and the final narrative, which is the ultimate comeback story.”
“We have to bury Jon if we want to be able to make the pivot with the audience, who we’re attempting to captivate, when we have the comeback story, which everybody loves,” Sonnen continued. “It is a story that has never got tired in all of a sport. Jon doesn’t understand that concept, that’s okay.”
Just last month, Jones was back on his own offensive against Sonnen. The Rochester-born star highlighted a level of hypocrisy shown by the reaction to Sonnen’s own arrest and assault charges last December.
Given that Sonnen is well beyond the point of a comeback in the sport, we can’t imagine there’s an ulterior motive to Jones’ attempts to bury the retired 45-year-old.
Defending honor?
— BONY (@JonnyBones) March 28, 2022
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