The retirement of Jon Jones was a bittersweet moment for the UFC community. On one hand, fans wanted to see him fight Tom Aspinall, but on the other, the heavyweight fighters joined them in by calling ‘Bones’ out for supposedly putting the division on pause. But was it really his fault, though? Well, the former two-division champion has finally blown the lid off this much-discussed mystery.

Since his last fight in November 2024, it took until June of this year for Dana White to announce Jon Jones’ retirement. But some fans wonder if not fighting Tom Aspinall was the 28-1 legend’s plan all along, then he should have made that known in the first place. However, it appears that Jones had already told Dana White that he intended to hang up his gloves, but the UFC CEO and the matchmaking team were reluctant to pull the plug. After all, they had arguably the biggest fight on their hands.

“I was told 1000 times to just reconsider and just give it more time. That’s the truth,” Jon Jones wrote on X in response to a fan asking him about the division’s hold-up. The fight against Stipe Miocic was always the grand plan for Jon Jones. After that fight, ‘Bones’ stated, who’s working on his other endeavors, and just living the life that he wanted after almost two decades of domination in the UFC.

In another tweet, after doubling down on retiring way back after UFC 309, Jon Jones added, “I was retired last November, and I’ve been working nonstop, I’m actually working harder now that I’m not fighting, but it’s so much fun. No more sweating, just using my personality and giving fans all the love that I can. Sounds like a pretty good gig.”

Well, by the way Jon Jones’ statements sound, it seems Dana White might have been the one to delay the eventual retirement announcement. But on the other hand, there are also comments about ‘Jones running away from Tom Aspinall. Even Daniel Cormier, his archrival, echoed that sentiment. But guess what? ‘DC’ has surprisingly backtracked on his statements.

Jon Jones is not a ‘quitter’, claims Daniel Cormier

Previously, Daniel Cormier was an ardent believer in the theory that Jon Jones needs to fight Tom Aspinall to cement his legacy. A lot of people, as we’ve already mentioned, wanted to see that fight. However, what Jones has done in this sport, fighting generations and generations of greats, Cormier believes he might have been too harsh on the former two-weight champion, although he believes Jones’ career was a mix of ups and downs.

“My immediate reaction to Jon Jones was, ‘If Jon Jones doesn’t fight this guy, he quit.’ I said that because I thought he needed to fight this guy. I thought you always give the next guy the opportunity… I have softened over the last couple of days, because of everything that you start to look at overall in terms of Jon Jones’ career,” said Daniel Cormier on the Good Guy/Bad Guy show. “He’s spanned three generations… He went through that first generation, then he went through our generation, then… the next [current] generation.”

Well, fans may not have gotten the fight they wanted, but Jon Jones, in all fairness, deserves to make his own decisions after what he’s given to the sport. He’ll truly remain an icon of the sport as the focus will now shift to Dana White. We’ll have to wait and see his reactions to Jones’ statements about not being in the fault for the hold-up of the heavyweight division.