Dana White has appeared on FOX Sports Live to discuss the UFC’s decision to strip Jon Jones of his light-heavyweight title and place him on indefinite suspension after his hit and run incident on Sunday.
“He didn’t say a lot,” White said of a meeting he and Lorenzo Fertitta had with Jones yesterday. “Obviously, he’s got to handle his legal proceedings. His lawyer didn’t say much. We basically went in there – what we wanted to find out was what the facts were. A lot of things are being said out there about what happened that day. A lot of them are untrue. A lot of them are speculation, and we wanted to hear Jon’s side of the story, and we wanted to hear what his lawyer had to say about it.
“Obviously he’s very disappointed. He’s upset. He wanted to go down as one of the greats, or the greatest ever. He’s disappointed, but it is what it is. It’s the decision we had to make.”
White also spoke of their decision to draft in Daniel Cormier to fight Anthony Johnson in order to crown a new light-heavyweight champion at UFC 187 next month.
“Obviously we have a guy like Jon Jones who has defended his title as many times as he has – and for us to go in and have to strip him of his title and suspend him, it’s not fun,” White said. “But as they say, the show goes on. Anthony Johnson is ready for this fight, and Daniel Cormier was beyond pumped to get this opportunity. What makes it even easier is Cormier is the type of guy that, as soon as he heard it, he said, ‘I’m ready. Put me in. I want this opportunity. I’m your guy.’ He was blowing me and Lorenzo (Fertitta) up from the moment he heard about this.”
As for Jones future, White admits that for now it’s up in the air while they wait to see what comes of his legal troubles.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen. We have suspended him indefinitely. Obviously he needs to focus on his legal matters right now and, I don’t know, we’ll see what happens.”
