Source: CagePotato.com
This really doesn't help Jones get rid of his haters, but what are you going to do? If the story holds up he cannot be blamed... Fishy though
Source: CagePotato.comWell, this isn’t going to help the credibility of that swagger-jackin’ Jon Jones. Bones’s manager Malki Kawa took to twitter today with a revelation that will only give more ammunition to the haters who found it a little suspicious that the UFC light-heavyweight champion postponed a fight against Rashad Evans to fix a thumb injury that “doesn’t affect his punching or grappling“:
I guess its time to put out the truth. @Jonnybones suffered a tear in his thumb in 2 different spots… Every dr he saw said to have surgery. We went to meet with the surgeon on wed and after he looked at @Jonnybones he thought that surgery was a bit invasive and bones didn’t have To have if he didn’t want to. @Jonnybones decided against surgery, and we immediately met with dana and lorenzo the next day to get his next fight scheduled.
For the record, every doctor @Jonnybones saw was a @ufc referred doctor. The very last one on the day before surgery thought against it…And to be quite frank, @Johnnybones never wanted to have surgery, the doctors advice all along was to have the procedure done. No @Jonnybones is not fighting rashad. Rashad is fighting phil davis. I’ll let you know who or when jon will fight real soon.
Do we think Jones ducked Rashad because he’s afraid of his former training partner? Of course not. Judging from the flawless beatings Jones has inflicted on guys like Mauricio Rua and Ryan Bader, that’s a ludicrous suggestion. Unfortunately, perception is reality, and Rashad can now hijack the narrative with the talking point that Jones pulled out of their fight with a fake injury, just to avoid fighting him. (Look, he’s already doing it!) At this point, turning public sentiment against Jones is probably as important to Evans as beating him in a fight. Get ready for a whole lot of mud to be slung…
LMAO Bobby ... LMAO!!!I really doupt he is already at the level striking wise and grappling wise to defeat a guy like Rashad just yet.
I truly believe Rashad knows he is the superior Fighter!
Completely agree. I've never liked Evans, but Jones is annoying as f**k. Rashad has had his foolish antics recently, but Jones is on thin ice becasue he's said such stupid things before, and this particular sequence of events is suspect.I just... don't care at all.
MMA is about fighting, not drama or teams or injury conspiracies or any of that garbage. Jones may be a great athlete but he sure has created a lot of annoying drama at LHW.
As discussed yesterday, Jon Jones will now not have the surgery on his hand which was the reason for pulling out of the planned UFC 133 bout with Rashad Evans. I pointed out at the time that Jones' manager Malki Kawa dropped the ball in how the situation was handled. Rather than shut down their public statements, Kawa continued tweeting all yesterday and today. In an effort to smooth the situation over he actually made things worse by tweeting gems like this in terms of why Jones vs. Evans can't simply be moved to August 6:
RT not enough time. June 11 to aug 6 is less than 8 weeks and he's coming off an injury.
As Mike Fagan pointed out: 8 weeks is 56 days, or exactly 8 weeks. And he's also not "coming off an injury." He has had this issue with his hand since college and is now choosing not to get it fixed. It's really time for Kawa and Jones to step away from the media, formulate a smart media plan and then execute it. At a time where desperate excuses aren't needed, Kawa continues to throw them out.
Let's run down the way that Kawa allowed the situation to play out in public one more time:
* Jones and Rashad is on the table and is, without a doubt, one of the biggest fights on the UFC's schedule. It is also the kind of fight that could turn a star into a superstar.
* Jones pulled out of the bout needing to have surgery on his hand.
* Rather than play up that this is something that he "needed" to have fixed for the good of his career, Jones was allowed to talk in public about how it is a situation he has been dealing with since college which doesn't impact his fighting but he just wanted to get corrected now.
* Once Evans was tied up with Phil Davis, Jones and Kawa announce that Jones was told he didn't need the surgery (which was always the case) and that he was making the choice to not have it. This after previously stating that he was choosing to have a surgery he admittedly didn't need.
* Then, Kawa goes on Twitter to say that Jones will fight again before the end of the year...just not against Rashad.
* When pushed on why Jones can't fight Rashad on August 8, he claims that 8 weeks is not 8 weeks and that Jones will be coming off an injury which has existed since college.
Look, Jones doesn't have to actually be ducking Evans for it to look like Jones is ducking Evans. Kawa is failing at his job. He is making a fighter who had built up a reputation as an unstoppable wrecking ball appear like he's going out of his way to avoid a fight with a guy who may be "in his head."
It would not have been hard when announcing that he was pulling out of the fight to drop some media friendly soundbites "I want my hand at 100% when I use it to break his jaw" or, at the very least, avoid ever saying that you're choosing a surgery you don't need over a fight.
Kawa is dropping the ball on, what should be, the easiest fighter to sell in the entire sport. It's making for a great example of just how few legitimate sports management types there are in the MMA game at this point.
Who's the article from. My guess is either Brookhouse or Snowden over at BE. I'm learning towards Snowden, since he's the type of guy to type "8 weeks is 56 days, or exactly 8 weeks" instead of "June 11 to Aug. 6 is 56 days, or exactly 8 weeks."Interesting article, figured it was related enough to this to not need a new thread.