Anytime a fighter stays on top for too long, there will begin to be a collection of fans that dislike the fighter and will root against him or her. Every division has a few fighters that fans will always want to see lose, and it’s typically for no real reason besides that fighter’s prosperity. Fan support is just a matter of opinion anyway so it doesn’t hold much traction in real arguments. Although, with social media being insanely popular among fighters and promoters, the fans can spread the love or hate to someone directly. Almost all fighters have a twitter or instagram account and usually have a large following. It’s a great way to keep in contact with fans, but it seems that most fighters can’t ignore the hate mail and negativity. One of the most polarizing fighters in recent years is the current UFC Light Heavyweight champ, Jon “Bones” Jones. Recent remarks made by the champ regarding contenders Daniel Cormier, Alexander Gustafsson, and even the UFC itself have made some fans question his attitude.
UFC 151 Jon Jones Ducks a Challenge?
Let’s flashback to the doomed card of UFC 151, Dan Henderson was slated to take on Jon Jones for the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship. Unfortunately Hendo had to pull out of his fight due to injury on short notice and Jones did not want to fight a different opponent. Chael Sonnen offered to step in and take the fight but Jon Jones refused. This created quite the uproar from fans and even from UFC management. This resulted in the entire card being scrapped due to no main event fight taking place.
Obviously, this was a huge event for the UFC and Dana White had a large amount of choice words for the champ, even as far as blaming the cancellation on him and saying that fighters like Jones were ruining the sport in general. This was the beginning of the “hate” that Jon Jones started to receive from many MMA fans.
However, many fighters have had hate from fans and negative responses to actions or fights. These were more of the type of things that bullies would say on the playground about being a wuss or not stepping up to take on the new opponent. With Chael Sonnen igniting the flames with his own words too, the media exploded all over any remark made by anyone involved and it became a huge story that summer.
Taking the Title
Going further back, the “attitude” of Jon Jones has always been a little off and on when it comes to the fans opinions of his fights. For example, when he defeated Ryan Bader and was offered the title shot vs. Shogun Rua immediately after his fight, he fell to his knees and seemed very appreciative of the opportunity, gaining much support. Fast forward to the title fight and we saw his seemingly “unsportsmanlike” conduct of dropping Lyoto Machida after choking him unconscious, and his career path seemed to start attracting argumentative fans.
Smugness
Jones has been called smug and cocky, which is almost what you would want from a UFC champion right? He does have a right to be a little entitled since he has beaten nearly every other top level fighter one-on-one in a fight to be named the best in the division. He wants to be the greatest of all-time, which he may be well on his way to doing, but why condemn him for that? This is where the prosperity breeding hate comes in. Call it envy or lashing out, but a large quantity of fans want to see Jon Jones go down.
This is similar to the people who wanted to see Anderson Silva go down due to his in-fight antics. Silva would dance around and let opponents attempt to strike him. Many fans would go crazy when he would knock the opponent out with a counter or simply dodge every punch thrown his way. When he was caught by Chris Weidman those fans cheered for the new champ and began saying that Silva shouldn’t have been dancing around like that, or that he should have been more focused on the fight. Silva was a top contender or the champion of his division for nearly 8 years. It was time for a change. In the same way, now that Jon Jones has been there for about 4 years, the fans want to see a new champion.
Recent Remarks
The most recent remarks made by Jon Jones allege that the UFC was “bullying” him by announcing his rematch with Alexander Gustafsson before he signed his official fight contract. Consequentially the fans were saying that Jon Jones was “ducking” Gus and was trying to not have the rematch based on the close decision in the last fight between the tow. Not that his next opponent would have any love for him anyway with it likely being Daniel Cormier. Jon Jones finally signed his contract after he worked out terms with his team and we await the official announcement.
All of these instances aren’t really a reflection of his attitude, no more than how a normal person deals with the annoying guy in the office. You want to just throw him down and slap on a guillotine choke, but that will get you fired, hated, and probably arrested. Jon Jones can’t fight his fans with his best tools, his elbows, but he can use snarky comebacks and angry tweets. This becomes one of the greatest and stupidest inventions of all time, social media, especially for fighters who are simply chosen for their in-ring performance of fighting rather than their real personality outside of the Octagon.
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