There are insane news cycles. And then there are news cycles that surrounded the cancellation of the first Ultimate Fighting Championship event since Zuffa took the reins of the organization in the early shades of the millennium.
Just when you thought you knew what was going on, another wrench was thrown into the works, leaving most of us insane and sleepless but when all was said and done a UFC pay-per-view event had collapsed and almost all the fingers were being pointed towards the UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones.
Jones was quick to point out that Sonnen, who hadn’t competed at light-heavyweight for years was not a worthy challenger for his championship before the UFC 151 debacle and it’s hard to argue that since Sonnen had just been defeated for the second time by UFC middleweight king Anderson Silva.
Now as he has signed on the dotted line to meet Sonnen in April as well as spend several weeks with him on FX’s reality tevision series The Ultimate Fighter he claims he isn’t doing it for the almighty dollar.
“No, it wasn’t the money. It really just had to do with getting over this chapter of my career. I’m trying to move forward and do a lot of amazing things. The UFC 151 cancellation, it was a tough moment for my career and I think beating Chael Sonnen and then after that beating Dan Henderson would help me add closure to that whole situation. It’s just putting closure to the Chael Sonnen invasion of my career and the whole 151 situation.”
Jones’ twitter following the most hectic and stressful 24 hours of his life was bombarded with thousands of abusive messages in 140 characters or less. Fans believed that Jones was handed a cakewalk on a silver platter and he was afraid of the self-proclaimed American Gangster.
It doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not I thought I could beat Chael. It was about handling my career in a professional manner. Taking a last minute fight to defend your world championship wasn’t fair to me. I absolutely know I can beat Chael and I’m really confident I can win this fight. I’m a championship fighter and I really don’t think Chael is a guy who knows how to win championships.
