What do you think, did Greg Jackson put himself first by refusing to allow Jon Jones to fight Chael Sonnen on short notice? Seems like an easy fight for Jones and if he loses Matt Serra style, the rematch would've done gangbusters business.
In this particular instance I don't really think Greg Jackson was in the wrong. Its a moral dilemma, but his job is to look out for Jon Jones' best interests. How it affects other guys isn't his concern. Its selfish if he knew that this would automatically eliminate the whole card, but its also not GJ's fault that the card had been falling apart for months and had no viable replacement main event. Main events do get scratched sometimes. Yeah JJ probably beats Chael, but hes more dangerous than most throw-in replacement fighters.
I think I agree. Fighting Sonnen isn't going to help Jones: either he beats an undersized guy he shouldn't have been fighting anyway, or he loses to that same guy. Waiting a month for Machida is no biggie. It isn't Jones' problem or responsibility to prop up the PPV. The UFC made the decision to cancel the card not because Jones wasn't fighting on it but because it fucking stunk without him. That's their bad putting all their eggs in one basket. They could've still done the show and maybe came up with a way to discount tickets or PPV prices, or cancel the PPV and put the whole thing on Fuel. Who knows? Sonnen is right, Jones is right, Machida is right, Jackson is right, everyone is doing what they need to do for their own careers. And honestly how much can it hurt Jones' reputation. The guy is already unpopular.
Cancelling the card does suck, but like you said speeds, fighting Machida in a month may be the best possible scenario. You get the real #1 contender in the fight, only wait a month, Sonnen has to move up the 205 ranks the hard way and if he earns it he'll get a proper title fight down the line. Dana is on another tantrum blaming GJ for what has happened, but the UFC is really the party who failed to do their job.
I think Jones had an obligation to take the fight. You're the LHW champion and you are coming off of a full training camp. There was little risk for Jones in this fight. Sonnen doesn't have KO power and his wrestling would be negated by Jones'.
Four weeks or w/e until the Machida fight in Toronto, though. Not like Jones is resetting the whole damn thing. Jones might've fought Machida instead of Hendo but Machida said he needed more time. I mean, this is the UFC's fault, not Jones' or Jackson's. The fight against Sonnen is kind of interesting in a one-off way but it is really just a distraction from the fact that the UFC built this PPV on sand and the tide came in.
As an employee though, Jones has an obligation to fight. What he did was selfish. Did the UFC build a bad card? Yeah, and it got even worse when Koscheck got injured and removed from the card, but everything was set up for it to still be sellable with Sonnen as the filler and Jones turned it down. Why did he turn it down? How is Sonnen different from Hendo? Why would you have to train your training camp? Both are good/great wrestlers. In fact, with Sonnen, you don't even need to worry about being KO'd. Can you fully blame Jones for not accepting the fight? No, but he had a chance to "Just Do It" and "fight whoever the UFC tells me to fight" and take a fight on short notice (funny he had no issues taking a title fight on short notice when Rashad got hurt) and save the paychecks of all the undercard guys, but he didn't. This shit storm that he's facing is warraned, IMO.
I agree with this. Jones fights for the UFC not the otherway around. When your a title holder it is an obligation to take on challengers for the title. To turn it down for your own reasons (baring injury of course) when the UFC is asking you to do this fight, You devalue the belt and yourself by turning it down. the UFC should have every right to inact a punishment, even to the extremes of stripping the title away. Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2
