The crowd erupted in laughter when Jon Jones and Anthony Johnson met for a staredown at the "Welcome to the Show" press conference prior to UFC 184 on Saturday at The Event Deck at L.A. Live in Los Angeles.
Light heavyweight champ Jones and top-ranked contender Johnson, who are scheduled to fight for the belt at UFC 187 on May 23, enacted a scheme to relive the press-conference brawl between Bones and Daniel Cormier at the MGM Grand in August.
And despite the fact that he was the victim of a prank, UFC President Dana White couldn't help but join the crowd with a rosy-faced chuckle.
Johnson explained why he and Jones got together backstage and decided to pull the stunt.
"I just said, 'Hey, we need to do something to get everybody going. He said, 'Hey I could give you the whole headbutt like I did with Daniel,' and I said, 'Cool let's do it, but where's Dave.' Dave Sholler was the one that was onstage whenever him and (Cormier) got into it. And he was like, 'Dana's up there, (so) we can't do it.' (But) I was like, 'No, let's do it.'"
With White standing in between them at center stage, Jones forcefully put his forehead to Johnson's, which caused Rumble to feint a right hand at the champ. Because White wasn't in on the joke, he responded by trying to stop what he perceived as another would-be catastrophe.
Although Jones and Johnson intended to punk UFC public relations chief Dave Sholler—the man who comically attempted to stop the Jones-Cormier brawl—they ended up fooling a totally unsuspecting White.
Johnson pointed out that the scheme would have made more sense had Sholler once again been the last line of defense, rather than White.
"Oh yeah, if Dave was up there it would have been perfect, but it is what it is. I think it's even better, though, because it was Dana. Dana's mister Billy bad ass, you know what I mean? You can't do anything to him, but he definitely damn near s--- on himself."
The much-anticipated Jones-Johnson bout will serve as the main event on a card that includes a middleweight title fight between unbeaten champ Chris Weidman and former light heavyweight champ Vitor Belfort. The card will also include several other high-profile matchups, including a lightweight bout between second-ranked Khabib Nurmagomedov and third-ranked Donald Cerrone and a heavyweight tilt between third-ranked Travis Browne and seventh-ranked Andrei Arlovski.
All quotes were obtained firsthand by Bleacher Report.
