Twitter Mailbag: A different side of former UFC champion Jon Jones

Jon Jones

In this Thanksgiving-themed edition of the Twitter Mailbag, who/what were the biggest turkeys of MMA in 2015? Will Benson Henderson celebrate next year’s feast as a Bellator fighter And what did we learn from Jon Jones’ hour-long interview with Ariel Helwani?

Got a question of your own? Tweet it to @BenFowlkesMMA. But not right now. I’m eating.

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We can believe some of it. When Jones talked with Helwani about the extent of his past drug use, I believe he was probably downplaying it quite a bit. But then, who wouldn’t? Jones’ real mistake there might have been thinking he could get away with more than he really could.

When Jones talked about his drinking, however, that had the ring of truth to me. He said he loves to drink, and that he justified it by pointing to his own continued success in the cage. And, again, who wouldn’t? If you could close down the bar a few nights a week, and still keep your title as the baddest man on the planet – along with the money and fame that accompanies it – wouldn’t you? I think I probably would.

And even when his partying got him into trouble in the fight against Alexander Gustafsson, Jones said, the fact that he still won only convinced him that he didn’t need to change. Which is exactly the lesson that a person with a substance abuse problem might take from that near miss.

But the problem with asking whether the Jones we see now is real or fake is that it sets up a false dichotomy. How many people do you know who are “real” all the time? In my experience, people who regard themselves that way are intolerable jerks, often because they haven’t learned how to fake it enough to be polite.

We understand this when it comes to our friends and acquaintances – or, especially, ourselves – but with certain others we are less understanding. There’s nothing Jones can do to convince some fans that’s 100 percent real all the time, and he shouldn’t try. As long as he’s not actively trying to portray himself as exactly the opposite of who he is when he thinks nobody is looking, that might be good enough.

While there are some similarities between Henderson’s situation and the one that led to Phil Davis heading to Bellator, there are also some important differences.

For instance, while Davis was a light heavyweight contender who seemed like he’d hit his ceiling in the UFC, Henderson is a former lightweight champ who seems to have found a new life, and a new attitude, at welterweight. He’s arguably more popular now than he was when he had a belt, and his ability to fight competitively in two divisions would make him a good pick-up for Bellator, especially if he ends his current contract on a two-fight winning streak.

But regardless of where Henderson fights next, he’s smart to test the open market. As a lot of managers have told me recently, Bellator seems serious about competing for the services of top free agents. It’s getting to that point that requires a leap of faith for some UFC fighters.

Jones does seem to have some lingering trust issues with UFC management, and I’d say he came by them honestly. He got thrown under the bus (and then buried in the cement) over the UFC 151 cancellation. He got tossed into the cage with a man who, according to lab tests, might have been abusing synthetic testosterone with the UFC’s tacit permission. Then, when his personal problems threw a wrench in the UFC’s plans, the men in suits came to Albuquerque to take his belt away.

One of several interesting moments in Helwani’s interview with Jones came when Jones gave his impressions of the meeting he had with UFC executives Lorenzo Fertitta and Dana White after his hit-and-run arrest. When Jones told his bosses that, given everything that had happened, he wasn’t interested in fighting, they told him he’d be stripped of his title.

“I do feel if I had been ready to fight, I wouldn’t have gotten suspended and my belt taken away,” Jones said.

Both here, and when Jones talks about the unchecked power of state athletic commissions like the one in Nevada, you get a sense that he’s lost a little of his naïveté about how things work in this business. That could be significant, because if Jones has his act together he could be a force in this sport for years to come. He is, after all, probably the best fighter in the world.

It’s hard to see Holly Holm commanding the same type or intensity of sustained attention that Ronda Rousey got as champ. But I don’t see it as an all-or-nothing proposition. You don’t have to be Rousey to be a star, and even if she decides to bolt for Hollywood I think women’s MMA will survive without her, in some form or another.

Still, I have a hard time imagining Rousey going full Carano. I think she’s a fiercer competitor than Gina Carano ever was. I also think she’d have a hard time letting Holm have the last word.

Whiskey and pie. And I already know what you’re going to say: 1) That’s an alcoholic beverage and a dessert, not a side dish, and 2) That’s two things instead of one. To that I would reply: 1) You Thanksgiving your way, and I’ll Thanksgiving mine, and 2) If you enjoy them simultaneously, with one in each hand, it still counts.

At least on this subject, I tend to agree with Chael Sonnen. The fighters who put forth a larger-than-life persona that plays well on TV aren’t so much acting as they are taking their normal personality traits and turning the volume up. The attitude? The sense of swaggering supremacy? I think Rousey believed all of that. I think most top fighters do. The only difference is that some don’t feel as comfortable wearing it in public.

Oh good. Another Thanksgiving-themed question. But since this is the one day a year we all pretend to really like eating dry, bland turkey – a dish so tasteless it’s only good when smothered with gravy – I’m not sure how you mean this question.

If you mean a thing that everybody else at least appears to like but that I have completely given up on, I’ll say kickboxing. I get it, there are some exciting knockouts, and the brain trauma per bout is probably higher, but every time I watch it I think, But what if one of these dudes grabbed a single-leg?

If you mean something where I’d like to see it get its head chopped off, I’ll say the all-too accepted practice of extreme weight-cutting in MMA. Not only is it unhealthy for athletes in an already unhealthy sport, but it probably diminishes the quality of many of the fight night performances we see.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s almost time for dinner. We’re having beef bourguignon this year.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Follow him on Twitter at @BenFowlkesMMA. Twitter Mailbag appears every Thursday on MMAjunkie.