Jon Jones' Historic Title Run Ends Without a Fight

My UFC fandom is admittedly very much in it's infancy and therefore it should be noted that I speak on this subject with absolutely no authority. My interest in UFC was peaked following the first Silva/Weidman because it was hard to have not heard about what happened in that fight. In the following months, my friend would try to convince me to watch more and often sending me youtube clips of Jon Jones fights since he was my friend's favorite. So when the rematch for Silva/Weidman was set, I was 100% behind finally watching my first UFC event. What can I say? I'm a pro wrestling fan, I can't pass up a good story.

I began with an already established respect for Jones due to my friend's fandom, hearing about his historic reign over the light heavyweight division and being a huge wrestling fan, I instantly identified him as the "real-life" version of WWE's own historic champion, CM Punk. A guy that's not shy about his ability and actually backs it up.

After watching a few UFC pay-per-views, I was incredibly impressed the first time I saw Anthony Johnson fight Phil Davis at UFC 172 and, again, was hooked hearing about his story about redemption and return to the UFC, living up to the potential he was originally tagged with. Since that fight, Johnson won two fights in the first round of each and I quickly discovered my favorite UFC fighter.

This leads to how excited I was to find out Johnson would challenge Jones for his championship, not only because Johnson was my favorite but because I felt like Johnson could actually beat the seemingly unstoppable Jon Jones.

And the Jon Jones got into a car wreck, which is bad enough that the other driver were injured but that it was allegedly a hit-and-run, a felony in New Mexico. Jones was indefinitely suspended from UFC and his historic title reign ended with a disappointing fizzle.

The irony of all this is that Anthony Johnson himself recently was reinstated after his own indefinite suspension after he faced domestic violence charges last September. He was reinstated and cleared to compete in November after the charges were dismissed. I don't see Jones' legal issues having the same conclusion and will probably be out of action for a while. Again, I speak with no authority on anything, just as a bystander.

Daniel Cormier, Jones' last opponent, will face Anthony Johnson for the vacant light heavyweight championship and will probably be a good fight but, in all respect to Cormier, there's no Jon Jones and a win would mean the world to both mean now fighting for it but the victory is always sweeter after slaying the unstoppable beast.

But truthfully, things can only get better for Jones beyond this point. Hopefully he rights all of his wrongs, let's the legal action take it's course and mount his comeback. He's still incredibly young and once he pays his punishment for his alleged wrong doings, the UFC has been known to welcome people home with open arms. Anthony Johnson is a shining example of this. But what does this mean for UFC in the short term? They took a lot of hits recently with cards having to be changed due to fighters testing positive to a variety of illegal drugs and had to cancel a pay per view completely because the card essentially fell apart. And now you have them essentially losing the face of their company after a bad judgement call and rumors swirling that Rousey is getting bored and wanting to explore other avenues. Will Jones ever return and seek redemption? Like I said, I'm a sucker for good stories.

Source: ESPN