Jon Jones' situation is already bad, but it's up to UFC not to make it worse

Jon Jones

Now that the rumors surrounding Jon Jones’ very bad weekend have coalesced into something more closely resembling cold, hard facts, it’s hard to imagine too many ways that this could have been worse for the UFC light-heavyweight champion.

Running a red light and hitting someone else’s car? That ain’t good. Fleeing the scene of an accident you caused? Even less good. But it’s the details that launch this story from the familiar realm of Pro Athlete Behaving Badly and into the stratosphere of Pro Athlete Fails to Display Basic Human Decency.

For instance, there’s the fact that it just happened to be a pregnant woman’s car that Jones (allegedly) hit. And the collision just happened to leave her with a broken arm. Not only did Jones (again, allegedly) take off instead of checking on the person he hurt, he did so on foot, which is not a great look for a guy so recently shown running through city streets in a Reebok ad.

But then, according to the police report, Jones returned to the scene. To check on the victim, perhaps? To wait for police and paramedics? No, it was just to grab a handful of cash. Then he ran off again, leaving behind an injured pregnant woman, a wrecked rental car filled with documents linking him to the crime, plus a pipe and some marijuana, just in case you didn’t already think his behavior seemed like that of a man who was maybe not completely sober behind the wheel.

After that, he goes incommunicado for the next day or so before finally turning himself into police, and then posting bail. Just to put a cherry on top at the end of a long, awful day, Jones’ lawyer, Vincent Ward, then appears before local news cameras to drop a gem of empathy and understanding.

“(Jones) wants to get down to training for this fight he has,” he said. “He wouldn’t want to be dealing with this right now, but he’s a great guy. He’s taking all this seriously.”

Good work, lawyer. Way to make your client seem like he’s more annoyed with the consequences of his actions than concerned for the pregnant woman he’s accused of injuring. Way to make it seem like you think he deserves credit just for not treating it all as one big joke.

Also, way to throw a mention of the fight in there, just in case all the people who are only now tuning into the ongoing Jones saga didn’t already know that he’s supposed to defend his title in roughly one month.

As of the time of this writing, that’s still the case. UFC officials have made no public mention of pulling Jones (21-1 MMA, 15-1 UFC) from his pay-per-view headliner against Anthony Johnson (19-4 MMA, 10-4 UFC) at UFC 187 on May 23, nor have they said whether they’ll strip him of his title, which even UFC commentator Kenny Florian has come out in favor of. If you think it’s because UFC executives are taking an “innocent until proven guilty” approach, just stop and think about how fast they’d cut some prelim fighter who put their brand name in national headlines over something like this.

At least so far, Jones has been permitted to play by different rules. He crashes his Bentley, and he gets his wrist slapped. He starts a hotel lobby brawl, and the UFC uses it to hype his next fight. He tests positive for cocaine, and the UFC is proud of him for attending a whole day’s worth of rehab.

Jones may be behaving like a spoiled rock star, but that behavior is enabled at every turn by the people who see him as a walking ATM.

If you want an answer to the question of how this could possibly get worse, there it is. The powers that be in our sport could easily make this worse by demonstrating that, when it comes to superstars, there are no meaningful consequences. They could once again choose money over everything, opting to go ahead with a fight that pits Jones, who stands accused of hurting one woman, against Johnson, who in 2010 copped a plea to hurting a different one.

They could once again remind us that how big a jerk you get to be and get away with it is directly proportional to how many tickets and pay-per-views you sell.

So yeah, that would make this worse. And, come on, isn’t it already bad enough? I think so. Hopefully the UFC agrees. Hopefully this time it sends the message to Jones that he needs to get his affairs in order, rather than simply going through the motions to make it look like he has.

For more on UFC 187, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.