Jon Jones says 'reflection' led to UFC retirement –\u00a0as news breaks of more legal trouble

USA Today

14 hours ago

In his social media history, Jon Jones has earned a reputation for tweeting, then deleting. But it seems like this one will stick.
Saturday, not long after UFC CEO Dana White announced Jones had called him to announce his retirement the night before, Jones posted on social media to confirm he has decided to walk away from the sport.
Jones (28-1 MMA, 22-1 UFC) had been playing a cat-and-mouse game with interim champion Tom Aspinall, who has been elevated to undisputed champion. After White's announcement at the UFC on ABC 8 post-fight news conference, Jones posted a message saying he was leaving "after a lot of reflection."
But not long after that post, news broke online from the Albuquerque Journal, the largest news outlet in the city Jones has lived and trained in for years, that Jones once again is in legal trouble.
According to the report, there is a criminal summons accusing Jones of leaving the scene of an accident. He is scheduled for a bond arraignment July 24, the Journal reported.
The details of the criminal complaint reported by the Journal include accusations that Jones left the scene of a crash with a half-naked and intoxicated woman in the car, and when reached by phone, a man thought to be Jones made "allusions to violence" to multiple police officials.
After the crash, according to the police complaint, Jones called the woman's phone more than a dozen times and also sent text messages. The woman said she drank at Jones' house and took mushrooms there, then next recalled being in a car crash after Jones allegedly was driving.
In 2015, Jones was arrested for a felony hit-and-run involving a pregnant woman. He pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident. He had a DWI conviction in 2012. He had another in 2020 that came with gun charges, later dropped in a plea deal, in the early days of the COVID pandemic.
Jones is the first fighter in UFC history to twice be stripped of titles, and he threw in a third for good measure. The first was for his hit-and-run while he was light heavyweight champion. The second was for his first doping violation the following year. In a rematch win over Daniel Cormier in 2017, he failed a drug test for steroids in California and was suspended again – and stripped of a title again.
In 2021, after a domestic violence arrest in Las Vegas the night after he went into the UFC Hall of Fame, his longtime team at JacksonWink MMA in Albuquerque gave him the boot and no longer wanted to be associated with him. He was sentenced to anger management classes in 2024 after an alleged altercation with a drug sample collection agent. In 2019, he pled no contest to charges of battery against a strip club waitress.
His supporters, of course, say that he also won fights – which is true. He was the youngest champion in UFC history at 23 and holds a host of promotional records. His retirement statement, below, said he had gratitude for his "journey."