It's official, there is NO historical presedence for what the UFC is doing to Tom

[Thy]

maybe jones has something on dana, something he saw one night that dana can't have the world know about.

 

[Mittens]

I do hold the belief that Jones is completely irrelevant to these shenanigans, he just happens to be the only pawn at Dana's disposal to one up GSP and then strut about how "Jones did what GSP could not" (defended the belt in a higher division) "Jones is the only true GOAT, not GSP" etc.

He's still crying himself to sleep every night cause GSP walked out on him not once, but twice. No amount of driveways covered in cocaine will ever be able to make up for that.

Hence, Dana will stop at nothing to get this thing done. And Jones is more than happy to oblige for easy money and ego-stroking.

 

[theincognito]

Something quite similar did happen many years ago:

*Randy Couture is the champion. He's sitting out. Last fought Aug 2007.

*Nogueira beats Sylvia for the interim title.

*Couture returns, not against the interim champ, but against a handpicked 2-1 Brock Lesnar, who he unexpectedly loses to.

*Nogueira defends the interim title against Frank Mir, unexpectedly losing.

*Lesnar and Mir finally unify the title in Jul 2009 after 2 years.

Jones is Couture, Stipe is Lesnar, Aspinall is Nogueira.

 

[orca]

It makes sense for the UFC to try and protect Alex because he still has several paydays left in him. Jon is at the end of the road. That's why this is bafffling.

What they're doing here is bad business,

but why?

theres a big chance jon beats tom if they ever fought
that would make the HW division look really bad i mean really really bad
imagine after that jones retires

that is bad more bad business for the future of the HW division
but if jones losses people will just say hes old and past prime

the risk is bigger

 

[The Boomerang]

GSP did that and retired immediately afterwards. He didn't hang around and take 2 years to pick a fight with Rich Franklin instead of fighting actual contenders. Thats the difference.
If Jones had retired immediately after beating Gane none of this would be an issue.

He did however promise to defend title and then do the opposite

“I aff to defend my title…eets een my contract”

Not exactly what Jones is doing but the same principles.

Low risk resume padding

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

I'm sure Tom is really broken up about this and cries himself to sleep every night.

 

[LincolnHawk1]

Jon has made it clear he doesn’t want to fight Tom and it certainly appears he is ducking him and that is coming from some one who used to be a big jones fan at one time. But I also think Jon is going to retire after today’s fight so I don’t think it will matter. I think what’s ends up happening is John wins tonight, retires tonight or sometime this week and in a couple months it will be Tom vs winner of volkov/gane for undisputed belt.

 

[HatKick]

It might have something to do with Ngannou leaving with the belt. Dana wants it to look like Ng ran away from Jon. To support that narrative he needs Jon to look like The Baddest Man on the Planet. He disposed of Gane in short order which was a huge win for Dana, but it's all for nothing if he then gets flatlined by Aspinall. Thus they give Jon an easy title defense against a big name and let him retire undefeated.

"See? Not only did Jones beat Gane more decisively than Ngannou did. He also beat the guy who beat Ngannou. Meanwhile Ngannou got KTFO in boxing."

Except the fans aren't buying it.

 

[Captain Herb]

The UFC isn't preventing any fight from taking place, you weirdo.

Actually yeah, they are. They are not forcing Jon to unify the belt and instead allowing him to choose to fight non-contenders instead. That's preventing the fight from happening. If they forced Jon to do what every other champ in history has had to do, the fight would happen or Jones would duck out