Jonny, We Hardly Knew Ye
As American bombs are dropped on Iran, for a geopolitical future uncertain, the one that UFC Heavyweight champion dropped on American fight fans today was simply fucking....delicious.
Marfa, Texas. Hotter than hell, so hot in fact that the swimming pool at the local hotel, designed on the best of days to provide a cool spot in the shade, felt like a hot tub. Jammed into my shoes and under my towel, my phone buzzed and when I saw the name Malki Kawa, I started…sweating.
You see Kawa reps Jon Jones. The undefeated Jon Jones, both Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight Champion for the better part of almost two decades. And he was calling me from Malki’s car as they drove somewhere for an interview scheduled for what I had believed at the time was an offshoot of Vogue. Vogue Men, or some such thing. I was on assignment for the creeps at OZY, but I took Jones’ call.
Did he sound like he had been huffing muggles? Yes, he did. But that wasn’t what caught me. What caught was the peevishness in his voice when I go away from the standard narrative. Which is my brand.
“Taking a risk fighting against a Chael (a fight where if the ref had spotted the bone protruding from his toe, it most assuredly would have been stopped with him as the loser)…”
Isn’t that the goal most of us hope to achieve, to be in a position to be able to say “fuck you” to “fuck you money”, and laugh while doing so?
“I took NO risks by fighting Chael…” he corrected, for the first time, actually irked by something I had said. Not what I had said so much as what I had had the temerity to assert: that he was human and sometimes “luck” doesn’t always run your way.
He wasn’t having it and in the briefest of moments I got a solid blast of the man’s ire and it didn’t frighten as much as it did unnerve me.
It’s not so amazing that Jon had become king, so to speak, but that he had managed to do so for so long. Long after the promise of him being a sports celebrity and a blemish free persona had crashed and burned, he had continued winning in the cage, and un-winning outside of it.
Run ins with the police, whom he loves apparently given the number of sober photo ops he’s had with them. Clear cut problems with drink and g-d knows what else. Drug testing imbroglios. Domestic abuse issues. And always good for not just the headlines but also whatever came underneath them, Jon Jones is a one man wrecking machine, endlessly press worthy.
Never more so than during the last 840 days or so while he’s kept the interim champ Thomas Aspinall, guessing and hoping for a fight. Aspinall tried at one point, vainly, to say that if Jones didn’t play ball he would be forced to “move on”. A risible threat since it begs the question in the face of a depleted heavyweight division in a sport that’s systematically become less a sport and more a shitty lifestyle brand: to WHAT?!?
And through it all Jones, smiling and spouting bible verses, thoroughly enjoying what it feels like to have the world on a string while he’s sitting on a rainbow. At one point it seemed the criminal activity — mostly the drinking-driving-fleeing-the-scene-of-the-accident stuff — would lose him the love of the mainstream in the same way that convicted rapist Conor McGregor, that irrepressible Irish cut-up and anal marauder, has.
Fewer appearances on late night TV. Fewer movie starring roles. All of it. Most of it.
And his [Jones] not giving a shit also shows a bit of PR savvy, conflating both the possible crime with his retirement. All while Tom Aspinall struggles to still get people to spell his name right.
Not Jones. See, there’s something magical about being a handsome, well-spoken son of a preacher who could murder the better part of the globe. Especially when your future is assured financially, along with your legacy as one of the most phenomenal fighters this planet has ever seen.
It mystified his most ardent nemesis former champion Daniel Cormier. Cormier couldn’t do the Jones math and even noted once that Jones was a guy who did everything wrong and people still loved him but he, Cormier himself, did everything right and he still got boo’d when they fought. It mystified him, but though he was on my old podcast Knuckle Up, he never got that Jones doing everything wrong while still being undeniably great is why he was, and remains, loved.
The snark, the snide curl of the lip, the suspected disingenuousness, the drunken excess, the lead foot, the car crashes (his most recent one in the last few days), all the ear marks of a heel, are what make him lovable. And I use that word advisedly because of the fight fans that like him? Well, most of them love him.
The ones that don’t? Just white noise against the greatness. Especially now that he holds all of the cards in his dealings with the cutthroat UFC, along with Dana White. Isn’t that the goal most of us hope to achieve, to be in a position to be able to say “fuck you” to “fuck you money”, and laugh while doing so?
And insofar as Larry Holmes, er, I mean Tom Aspinall, the “new” heavyweight champ, is concerned now that Jones has officially “retired”, well, he’s a man without a portfolio. Which must mightily suck for him. That is, living in the shadow of a greatness that dwarfs his sort-of goodness.
This is precisely why I like sports because it topsy-turvys the Platonic triad of true, beautiful and good and leaves us having a real elemental understanding of both why the crowd set Barabbas free and crucified Christ instead and why the most sympathetic character in Dante’s Divine Comedy is Lucifer.
Jones appears to do what I most respect sometimes in men. He’s choosing to not give a shit.
They are hidebound to their fortunes and futures, as good, bad or ugly as they may be.
So in the faint glow of his retirement announcement, which absolutely no one who knows much about combat sports believes, and his legal kerfuffle that alleges that he crashed his car and ran off leaving a half naked woman who wasn’t his wife high in the car, Jones appears to do what I most respect sometimes in men. He’s choosing to not give a shit.
And his not giving a shit also shows a bit of PR savvy, conflating both the possible crime with his retirement. All while Tom Aspinall struggles to still get people to spell his name right.
This is how we like our heroes in this new day and age. Unrepentant, unconcerned and unaffected by life’s brickbats, Jones has become one of those public personages, like Trump kind of, that sits outside normal considerations. So is it any wonder that he danced for Trump at his last victory. And the dance he did? The Trump Dance.
Most of us will also never be lucky, or unlucky, enough (depending on which car you’ve been a passenger in) to ever see his ilk again.
So let’s just bid good riddance, for the time being, to bad, wonderful, supremely talented rubbish. Because, really, we should all be so “lucky”.
TICKETS?!?!? GET YOUR TICKETS HEEEEERRRRREEEE…..
AND….to kick off the BUNUEL tour of the USA? The newest video…
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The latest alleged "dirty" behavior is the best yet. I want the AI movie of Jon's life. The only challenge will be how to secure an R rating. I will miss him. Second to Anderson he brought me my best professional sports moments.
Even with the eye poking, I did what I could to like Bone Thugs N' Harmony up until the first hit and run. Nope. Another talented Cunt that doesn't deserve my time or attention, though I'd be lying if I said I would have passed on watching the Ngannou fight.