Dana White Reveals Jon Jones Walked Away from ‘Done Deal’ Tom Aspinall Fight

Jon Jones’ UFC 265-pound run comes to unceremonious end but UFC CEO Dana White presents legal reasons were not part of it.

Dana White Reveals Jon Jones Walked Away from ‘Done Deal’ Tom Aspinall Fight

Jon Jones was ready for unifiction before a weird U-Turn, per Dana White (Source: X/IMAGO)

It was past the nine-and-a-half-minute barrier during the UFC Baku post-fight presser when UFC CEO Dana White dropped the bombshell. Ex-UFC heavyweight Jon Jones linked up with White and UFC brass on Friday and informed them of his retirement from active competition.

Jones’ retirement announcement was followed by news that broke hours later — “Bones” was facing new criminal charges related to a hit-and-run incident from February. Per reports from the Albuquerque Journal, the Albuquerque fighter was issued a criminal summons, filed Tuesday in Metropolitan Court. It accused Jon Jones, 37, of a misdemeanor charge of leaving the scene of an accident

That only added more to his unlawful run-ins, DUIs, battery, and unsolicited violence, and many would naturally surmise Jones’ latest vehicular charge is why he quit. There wasn’t a lot of follow-up from Azerbaijani media scrum during UFC Baku Fight Night, but reporters did catch up with Dana White later at the UFC-Saudi GEA-sanctioned New York City “Canelo vs. Crawford” launch media presser.

White, until very recently, had said this matchup would happen. UFC had come under fire for not promoting former interim champ Tom Aspinall to ‘undisputed’ status sooner. The UFC CEO presented that despite the logjam and hassles about a huge PPV monetary sum, there was good reason for it. A Jones vs. Aspinall PPV title scrapper was all but done.

Yeah, the fight was done, ...[So] Why he decided not to fight, you guys will have to ask him that. These are all questions you gotta ask him, ...You saw me talking about it very confidently that this fight was gonna happen. And then he changed his mind — So he called us and just started saying, ‘You know what? I think I’m done. I wanna retire and it’s been a great run, I appreciate everything,’ and that was it. He was absolutely positively sure that he wanted to retire...When I saw it today [the charges], I said, ‘Oh, everybody’s gonna think this is why he retired,’
Dana White via TheMacLife

Chael Sonnen and ESPN’s ‘Good Guy / Bad Guy’ podcast co-hosts Daniel Cormier, Matt Brown, Michael Bisping, and others iterated how Jones wasn’t a big PPV perpetuity royalty merch draw like Conor McGregor to default such asks and needed a unification fight.

There were serious doubts that Jon Jones was overplaying and overpricing himself out of title unification with a rumored $30 million PPV monetary compensation; he had only two heavyweight fights after all. However, a later post-mortem of the situation had Dana White saying that UFC litigation was actually down with the finance, and Jones was getting “what he deserves” in PPV compensation.

Hence, legal bindings and money problems were not part of the equation as to why he hung it up. While Jon Jones’ still-unexplained U-turn from an Aspinall fight has no cemented reason, the fighter did weigh in on his retirement in a series of tweets later. He also refuted his new criminal charges.

Jon Jones weighs in on latest criminal charges after retirement

There has been a lot of to-and-fro and speculation after Jon Jones’ retirement. Dana White supported the purport that retiring legend Jones “made it very clear” he was gunning for a legacy bow out and deserved so.

Jon Jones comments on and refutes vehicular charges
Jon Jones comments on and refutes vehicular charges (Source: X)

Former two-time Ex-UFC rival Daniel Cormier told ESPN MMA’s Brett Okamoto in a reactionary interview that Bones owed it to Aspinall, the whole jammed HW weight class, and UFC to “drop that ladder” and pay his dues. Aspinall did cross a ginormous threshold as the longest-active interim beltholder and even made a rare defense of the substitute strap. However, DC also gave rival Jones his due despite the highly tarnished legacy.

The only thing standing in the way of Jon Jones retiring as the absolute best was himself. Granted, ducking out on an Aspinall fight was a whole dose of breath to that fire. But Bones has had unlawful run-ins and charges surmounting over the years that make him highly contentious outside of fighting.

On Saturday evening, Jones posted a statement on social media announcing his retirement from the UFC. Later on the same night, he also posted on the new criminal charges.

Jones is set to appear in Albuquerque court on Thursday, July 24th, for a bond arraignment regarding the vehicular charge. For his part, the Albuquerque Journal reported his side of the story. But to what end?

Jones’s latest tweet about the latest “leaving the scene” incident in 2025 is strikingly similar to when he was accused of inappropriately choking a waitress in 2019. Fight or flight, much? He wasn’t in trouble, and “don’t be so quick to believe everything you read on the Internet, my friend,” he wrote to the audience back then.

This only adds to the pile: Jones’s history includes an infamous 2015 hit-and-run incident involving a pregnant woman and drugs. However, the web of connections goes much deeper. In addition, there was a 2012 DUI incident, a 2016 drag-racing violation, and a 2020 DWI and firearm misuse.

An intoxicated Jon Jones said he’d trash the ‘nerd’ Las Vegas Metropolitan Police who arrested him for assault of the mother of his children, following his HOF induction process. Recently, he was under fire for allegedly threatening to kill a DFSI drug test pool agent and faced a Bernalillo County (N.M.) court arraignment, and also for ‘Sex*al Act’ against a male commissioner.

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