(via Instagram.com/jonnybones)
By now, you’ve probably seen the video of UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones getting his left eyebrow stitched up last week, following an apparent training injury. With his UFC 178 title defense against Daniel Cormier just two months away, the release of the clip was an interesting choice, as most fighters tend not to publicly broadcast their physical vulnerabilities before fights.
“I’m gonna take u down and grind my elbow into that cut you got today,” Cormier wrote on Thursday in response. “Put a bullseye on that thing. Some things should remain private.”
So what if I told you that the video was intentionally manipulated, in an attempt to trick Cormier into targeting the wrong eye? This morning, Pedro Ivo Jr. from Portal do Vale Tudo dropped some knowledge on us via email:
Jon Jones manipulated his instagram video about the cut he suffered. You can see clearly that in one moment they are stitching the RIGHT eyebrow…and not the left. Why did he do this? It’s the same eyebrow that Gustafsson opened at [their] fight. He is trying to hide that he opened the same side.. so DC wont notice this!
And yeah, if you watch the video closely, you’ll see that the certificates on the wall behind him are displayed in reverse. Oh snap. I don’t appreciate your ruse, Jon.
Shortly afterwards, Jones decided to drop the charade, posting undoctored photos of the injury over his right eye (see here and here), but by then, the story had already been widely reported incorrectly. As of yesterday, Jones was still occasionally pretending that it was his left eyebrow that had suffered the damage, securing his reputation as MMA’s greatest Instagram troll.
One person who isn’t buying any of this is Alexander Gustafsson, who posted the following on Instagram on Friday:
@jonnybones, really sorry for the deep cut I gave you in our last fight. At least you will have a memory from me every time someone opens it up for you. To not make your other eye jealous for not having a cut, I promise to leave a memory on that one as well next time we fight. Now, take care
If only all MMA fighters were this thoughtful and polite.
(Photo via Getty)