Jon Jones claims he was deep in negotiations with the UFC to compete on the upcoming White House card, but the promotion wouldn’t budge on its financial offer.
On Saturday, Jones responded to a fan asking about him potentially facing Alex Pereira at the historic card planned for June 14 in Washington D.C. It’s been well documented that Jones put off retirement specifically for the opportunity to potentially fight at the White House, and he says his asking price was much lower than the offer made for him to face Tom Aspinall in a heavyweight title unification bout.
Jones was reportedly offered around $30 million to fight Aspinall, but he ultimately passed and briefly retired from the sport.
“Was ready, willing and physically able to step in,” Jones wrote on Twitter. “I was willing to take substantially less than the Aspinall ask but they wouldn’t budge one dollar over $15 [million]. I felt like our fight was worth more.”
UFC doesn’t publicly disclose fighter paydays so it’s impossible to know for certain how much or how little that number compared to Jones’ past fights with the promotion.
After announcing the UFC White House card, UFC CEO Dana White stated that the organization was talking to numerous fighters about potentially competing at that event, but he swears Jones was never in serious consideration due to past instances where he’s dropped out of fights or pulled out of fights due to outside-the-cage behavior.
”Never, ever, ever, which I told you guys 100,000 times was Jon Jones even remotely in my mind to fight at the White House,” White said after UFC 326.. “First of all, I’ve told you why I wouldn’t do it and No. 2 some guy with Meta glasses on filmed him talking about his hips, that his hips are so bad and I don’t know if you guys saw that flag football game where he can barely run. Jon Jones, he retired because of his hips. He’s got arthritis in his hips, apparently doctors say he should have hip replacements.
“That on top of all the other reasons that I wouldn’t [put him at the White House]. The Jon Jones thing is bullshit.”
Regardless, Jones isn’t fighting at the UFC White House card, and the promotion eventually shifted attention to booking Pereira against Ciryl Gane in an interim heavyweight title fight instead.
