Jon Jones Says He's Relinquishing UFC Championship, Asks For Release In Midst Of Nasty Contract Negotiations

Just a few weeks ago, Jon "Bones" Jones was chirping Francis Ngannou on social media - teasing a jump to heavyweight to take on "The Predator" in an all-time superfight - and Francis was chirping right back at him, with some great digs being exchanged back-and-forth....

...and it really seemed like these guys wanted that fight. I think it's safe to say the fans (myself included) wanted that fight, too! We were all gettin so excited for it! We were talking about possibly the greatest knockout artist the sport has ever seen taking on the greatest of fighter of all time there. Who WOULDN'T wanna see that?!

Unfortunately, it sounded like negotiations to make this fight happen pretty much never got off the ground, when Jones let us know via Twitter that he and the UFC were extremely off-base in what they felt Jones should be paid, which I wrote about here….

….and Francis Ngannou more-or-less felt the same way, hilariously putting it bluntly here…

In the days following all of this talk from Jones, Dana White fired back, saying he was asking for ridiculous "Deontay Wilder" money in the middle of a global pandemic, and a nasty he-said she-said erupted! 

It led to a larger discussion about whether or not Jon Jones SHOULD be making as much as Deontay Wilder for a few days, and then eventually culminated in a "Bret screwed Bret" type quote from Uncle Dana and Jon asking to be released….

Today, he says he's relinquishing his UFC Light Heavyweight Championship for Dominick Reyes and Jan Blachowicz to fight over, and asks to hear back from the UFC if they want him to fight Israel "The Last Stylebender" Adesanya next year. 

Sooo I guess he doesn't want that release (right now), but he definitely ain't interested in working with Dana or the UFC for a little bit. Obviously, he's pissed off right now and that plan could change in a second, but it's his plan right now nonetheless.

I don't even know if this'll wind up mattering in the mind of the UFC, because honestly, Jones hasn't been around much in the past few years anyway due to fuckups outside of the octagon, and he's really not that big of a draw anyway, but obviously his fans will be upset. I say "Good Riddance!"