Mailbag: Is it finally time to strip Jon Jones of the UFC heavyweight title and move on?

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21-05-2025

Jon Jones seems to be in no hurry to defend the UFC heavyweight title, with just two fights in the last five years. (Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC)
Now that he's fully committed to enjoying himself far away from MMA, is it finally time to strip Jon Jones of the UFC heavyweight title that he doesn't seem to want to defend?
Plus, what's the ideal snack for a UFC Fight Night live from the APEX? And which fight promotion could step up and fulfill our need for the occasional freak-show fight?
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All that and more in this week's mailbag. To ask a question of your own, hit up @benfowlkesmma or @benfowlkes.bsky.social.
@NeedXtoseePosts: So what to you personally think happened with Jones
It is starting to look like when Dana kept trying to pressure Khabib to do one more when he made it very clear he was done - if it is that
How annoyed should Tom be, with the problem being there is nothing he can do about it.
Let me answer the last question first: Very annoyed. Tom Aspinall should be very annoyed. With everyone. He's in the prime of his career, the peak of his earning power, and he's stuck in interim title purgatory with no end in sight. If I were him, I'd be mad at Jon Jones for intentionally holding up the division (more on that below), but also mad at the UFC for stringing me along all this time. Aspinall is basically the only blameless party in all this, but he's also the one who is suffering the most harm from it.
As for what's really going on with Jones, well, where to begin? It's very clear right now that he has no plans to defend the UFC heavyweight title any time remotely soon. He's off in Thailand riding around on motor bikes and 'living [his] best life.' He also claimed on social media that he 'told the UFC my plans a long time ago,' but wouldn't go so far as to share those plans with fans beyond saying that he'll 'continue to monetize on this amazing brand I've created.'
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This is where I have to ask, what does Jones think his personal brand is right now and does he actually think it's going well? Whenever he pops up on social media he's inundated with angry comments from fans accusing him of ducking Aspinall. And whenever Jones the fighter does something great and raises his esteem in the eyes of the fans, it's only a matter of time before Jones the person does something terrible and brings it back down again.
That's the Jon Jones brand at this point. It's the most consistent thing about him, that ebb and flow between MMA heroics and personal catastrophes. Now even the MMA side of the equation is being overshadowed by his long, troubled absences.
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Jones posts vague references to returning after some 'much needed downtime,' but he's by far the least active champion on the UFC roster. He's fought twice in the past five years. He hasn't fought more than one time in a calendar year since 2019. And before that, the last time he did it was 2013. It's been six months since he insisted on defending the belt against a semi-retired Stipe Miocic, and now he's telling us how badly he needs a vacation? It's a joke.
So what do I think is happening with him (to return at last to your first question)? I think he doesn't really want to fight anymore. I think he wanted the Miocic fight because he thought it would look good on his record. And now that he's got that? He doesn't really care. He might care again eventually, once he has to watch this sport move on without him. But for now we should start getting used to thinking about Jones' UFC career in the past tense.
@ZacCokely: It looks like it's time to strip Jon Jones of the belt. Who do you think should shoulder most of the blame for the heavyweight title being held up for so long?
Jones has been seemingly difficult to motivate in recent years, but doesn't the UFC also need to be more decisive?
My question for UFC execs at this point is what did they know about Jones' 'plans' and when did they know it. Because if he told them he was going to spend most of the year totally out of the picture, then they've done Aspinall a major disservice by keeping that from him. They've also misled fans, with UFC CEO Dana White showing up every few weeks to insist they're inching ever closer to a deal and a date for that fight.
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If Jones told them something along the lines of, 'Hey, thanks for letting me pick my own title challenger, see you in 2026,' then the UFC should have stripped him of the title by now. It's ridiculous to keep Aspinall waiting this long. Promote him from interim champ to actual champ and let him defend the belt against a heavyweight who actually wants to fight. If Jones doesn't like it, hey, sign the contract and you can get a shot at Big Tom's belt when you're ready.
Jones deserves (and will no doubt receive) the lion's share of the blame for avoiding this fight. But the longer the UFC lets him hold up this division, the more of that blame it shares as well.
@pdlmma: I'm worried the pure freak show mma fight is dying. Not influencer fights, but people of outrageous proportions throwing down. Where could the next great freak show come from?
You're right that Japanese fight promoters have really been asleep at the wheel on this lately. But you know who's been offering me hope lately? Misfits Boxing. I just watched their four-man 'survivor tag' boxing match on Friday and that thing was brimming with possibilities.
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Think about it. What's the biggest problem with freak show fights in MMA? It's that too many of our talentless behemoths can't keep up a steady output without Bob Sapp-ing themselves to the canvas after a minute or two. This eliminates that problem. They can tag in and out, creating drama as well as new opponent combinations. It really was a super fun format to watch, and it's perfectly suited to groups of fighters who aren't (yet) that great at fighting. I'm going to go ahead and call it the sport of the future.
@EyeofMihawk: Is it just me or do top fighters take forever to get booked? We hear some fighters complain about not getting enough fights. Cards definitely seem less stacked. What's the cause? Is it another measure to cut payroll costs, or does the UFC need more than two matchmakers?
A big part of it is that the higher up in rank you go, the fewer people there are for you to fight. Say you're the No. 3 fighter in your division. Who does it make sense for you to fight? Anyone above you, obviously, and maybe someone one or two spots below you. But the top one or two guys are both holding out hope for a title shot. And do you really want to risk your spot against the No. 5 guy? That's not going to move you closer to the title, is it?
Add in stuff like injuries and availability timelines, maybe some peculiarities of the calendar and which cities are more likely to get excited about which fighters, and you have yourself a lot of complicated moving parts. But also, yeah, having only two matchmakers to manage all that with a roster of many hundreds of fighters is absurd.
@GabeDert: Could they do random weight checks
Like they did the ped checks
Catch a guy say ten pounds over his weight class he's gotta move up?
Is that crazy?
Could be a good thing for the fighters ultimately?
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There's not a single thing stopping the UFC from having those anti-doping program collectors show up with a bathroom scale just to acquire some data. What's trickier is deciding what to do about it.
The California State Athletic Commission is one of the few regulatory bodies that's actually made an effort to police this aspect of the sport, and with mixed results. Telling a fighter they have to move up in weight because you don't like how much weight they're cutting is tough. It's even tougher when they're consistently making the weight. You can tell them it's not good for their bodies, but hell, none of this is good for people's bodies. Shouldn't it be their choice? Or so the argument goes.
It's also tricky because some fighters like to really tuck in at the dinner table between fights. You probably know which ones. They balloon up in weight between fights, so the drug-testers might show up when they've just had their fifth milkshake of the day and get a distorted picture of their walking around weight. Just, you know, as a for instance.
@JoseYoungs: How long would it take you to drink all of the water in an average sized above ground pool?
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For the sake of this scenario we'll say it's a pretty average residential above-ground swimming pool that holds about 15,000 gallons of water. We'll also say that it's filled with clean, filtered drinking water that is, in the hypothetical world we've created, never contaminated by any environmental factors.
Right now, I'd say I drink maybe a little over half a gallon of water per day, give or take. But that's me just walking around living my life, not really gunning for any particular water consumption. If I were to push it, I think I could get up to 1.5 gallons per day. At that rate, it would take me 10,000 days — or a little over 27 years. And that's if I never miss a day of really going hard at drinking that swimming pool water.
If I just continue drinking water at my current rate, it'll take me about three times as long. Which is to say, I will almost certainly not live long enough to finish drinking all the water in a residential above-ground swimming pool. The water will outlast me. It will still be in there when I inevitably die. So thanks for forcing me to consider my mortality today, Jose. Really appreciate it.
@MMAFAN2019: What is the perfect fight day food for watching inconsequential Apex cards?
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Nachos. I say this not just because they are one of the world's greatest snacks, but also because of the attention required. As all real nacho-lovers know, you need to pay attention to each bite. This is both to ensure that you're choosing good bites — if you're sharing, there's a rule that you can't eat all the fully-loaded bites, but you also shouldn't resign yourself to some sad perimeter chips with barely anything on them — but also because you need to make sure stuff isn't falling off your chips somewhere between the plate and your mouth.
In other words, nachos are not an ideal snack to pair with some event that you can't look away from. The Kentucky Derby. A big heavyweight title fight. The 1998 erotic thriller 'Wild Things,' directed by John McNaughton. Look away from any of these for a moment or two and you might miss the best part. In a situation like that, you're better off with popcorn or some other snack you can reach for blindly.
But these UFC Fight Night events from the UFC Apex typically include a lot of filler and not a lot of truly must-see fights. That's a place where nachos can really shine. Take your time. Pick your bite. Balance it well. Those two fighters you only barely remember seeing before will still be there when you're ready.