He is the king at 205, essentially undefeated, has some of the biggest sponsors around, a posterboy for the UFC but he has a lot of people with not-so-kind words to say about him. Jon Jones defends his title this weekend against Glover Teixeira but for the past couple weeks we have heard everyone but the challenger talk about the champ.
Alexander Gustafsson, John Hackleman, Phil Davis and Chuck Liddell have all made headlines recently regarding comments they have made about Jones.
Gustafsson told us that “Jones is doing whatever he can to not fight me” when we spoke to the future title challenger at the UFC event in Abu Dhabi. These comments from the Swede are in response to Jones’ recollection of how the first fight between the pair went and his thoughts on his journey back to a rematch.
John Hackleman, Teixeira’s coach, last week stated that he finds that by Jones’ looking down the line at who could be challenging for the title is disrespectful to Teixeira and is overlooking the Brazilian.
“I don’t really pay attention to who’s overlooking who, but if he’s doing that, that’s kind of rude and kind of a slap in the face to Glover and it’s pretty disrespectful and if he is really doing that,” Hackleman told Submission Radio. “If the fans are doing that then whatever, that’s fans, but if Jon Jones is really doing that which I don’t think he really is, then to me that’s just disrespectful and rude and that’s maybe why, you know, people don’t love him like they did Chuck.”
Chuck Liddell chimed in on Jones on Monday during an appearance on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani. The former champ said he doesn’t agree with some of the stuff Jones says and still lays the blame for UFC 151 on the champs shoulders.
Even Phil Davis had a go at Jones during the pre-fight conference call and Davis isn’t even fighting the champ. Here are some of the highlights of that call from MMA Weekly:
Alan’s Angle: So what is it about Jon Jones that he rubs people the wrong way? My take on it is that Jones is arguably the best fighters on the planet, and possibly of all time, but his attitude and the comments he makes do not make him the most likable. Whether he is genuine with what he says or whether he says the things he does just to get under his opponents skin it has a knock-on affect on what people outside think of him.
He should be the most-loved fighter in the UFC from a fans perspective. He finishes fights, is exciting, breaks records, pushes boundaries but it seems everyone loves to hate him. The UFC need something drastic to happen about the perception of, arguably, their number one guy. The UFC needs Jones to be able to sell PPV buys and garner some much need fan interest that will bring more people to the UFC much like GSP, Chuck Liddell and Brock Lesnar have done in past.
