The whirlwind came Sunday. Jon Jones was out of UFC 187. Cocaine was involved. He was involved in a car accident. A pregnant woman sustained an injury. Police had him in custody. He wasn’t in custody. There was no cocaine. Jones wasn’t a suspect. And then he was.
The details have been distilled down to this: A three-car accident; Jon Jones’ name on rental papers; Jones’ car running a red light; a police officer identifying Jones running away from scene; a pregnant woman with a broken arm; Jones returning to the scene to grab cash from the car before taking off once more; a marijuana pipe in the car. Jones will have his day in court, but it looks like that day will be spent negotiating a plea deal.
With the facts, however, have come the takes. Kevin Iole led things off, calling for the UFC to strip Jones of his title and pulling him out of UFC 187. Kenny Florian echoed Iole’s sentiment. Chuck Mindenhall thirded with the added caveat that he “[hates] moralizing.” ‘Kid’ Nate Wilcox agreed while spending half of his fifteen minutes verbally cut-and-pasting from Iole’s piece. Jeremy Botter argued for the strip in his debate with Jonathan Snowden.
Can the UFC even take this action? Jones’ actions clearly fall under the list of misconduct given in the UFC’s Code of Conduct. Under the “Disciplinary Process” section, however, the Code of Conduct notes that discipline “may take the form of fines, suspension, and cessation of service and may include conditions to be satisfied prior to the resolution of the incident.”
The UFC stripping a fighter of their title isn’t without precedent; they’ve done it nine times. But of those nine times, four were the result of a contract dispute or a fighter leaving the promotion, three were the result of a fighter testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs, and two were the result of injuries. Stripping Jones of his title would be the first time the UFC took such action against a contracted who hadn’t tested positive for PEDs or suffered an injury.
Would such an action open the UFC up to a lawsuit? Iole writes that stripping Jones of the title would be a “symbolic gesture,” and while a belt is just a symbol of divisional hierarchy, it brings real economic benefit to those who carry it. Should the UFC strip him of his title, Jones may elect to pursue a lawsuit, which could carry ramifications for the UFC for acting as both promoter and sanctioning body and its relationship with so-called “independent contractors.”
Legal hypotheticals aside, the UFC should feel no urgency to act. Here’s Snowden:
Rather than suspend Jones, I recommend that they pull him from UFC 187 while waiting for his legal proceedings to play out.
That way he isn’t being unduly punished before the facts are established but the UFC also isn’t immediately rewarding him with a payday worth millions of dollars. Then, once we are all on firmer ground here, the organization can take further action as warranted.
The UFC will have to do some calculations with regards to the short-term profit of keeping Jones on the card versus the long-term harm (to Jones and the organization’s reputation). It seems prudent for the UFC to pull Jones from UFC 187. The middleweight title fight between Chris Weidman and Vitor Belfort is a suitable replacement that leaves a very good, if less spectacular, main event in place. That said, there’s still nearly a month for the legal process to play out, and we’ve just seen the UFC show they’re willing to go down to the wire with Quinton Jackson.
But there’s no rush to strip him of the title, and there’s no need to strip him unless this legal issue keeps him sidelined long enough for the UFC to take action. Iole says the UFC can “easily rectify the situation” should Jones somehow be found innocent by putting him straight into a title fight. If that’s the case, and if stripping the belt is symbolic at best, they could avoid all that by simply exercising some patience.
