The facts as we know them are thus:
· Since the departure of such heroes as Chuck
Liddell and Brock Lesnar, and relegation to the injury list for Georges St.
Pierre, Jones has become one of the few pay-per-view draws the UFC has left in
its rotation. As such, UFC 151 had his
marquee bout against Henderson anchoring a card that was pretty much about as
compelling as a TUF finale (read: the rest of the card sucked).
· When Henderson bowed out due to injury, there
were only eight days on the calendar before UFC 151 would grace our television
screens.
· Jones was offered a replacement opponent in
Sonnen (a middleweight contender trying his hand at the next weight class up,
and coming off a loss to Anderson Silva).
Under the advice of his trainer and Master Yoda, Greg Jackson, Jones
said “no dice, homie.” The UFC had no
other viable options to offer Jones.
· Because it lost its main event, UFC 151 was
transformed into a collection of fights that wouldn’t have been worthy of a
Bellator broadcast. Therefore, the
powers that be pulled the plug.
In tort law, which is one of the cornerstones of the
American judicial system, there’s the tenet of “duty” – does Party A owe Party
B a duty? What was the duty? Was that duty met? In this instance, Jones did not officially
owe a duty to anyone but himself and his future, and maybe from his
perspective, not accepting a fight against a smaller, out-of-shape fighter
carried with it more risks than rewards.
Maybe.
Regardless, there’s something called “taking one for the
team”, and in this instance, the “team” was every UFC fan who’d planned out
shelling out the dough for the pay-per-view, and any poor soul who’d booked a
flight and hotel room in Las Vegas to watch the event live. Also on that team: the fellow fighters on the
rest of the card, many of whom were counting on their UFC 151 paychecks for
things like rent, car payments, training costs, and meals that didn’t involve
33-cent packages of ramen noodles.Yup, Jones screwed them all.
“Own thing that you really have to think about are the
fighters on the undercard. Sure, Jon
Jones is rich, what does he care if he cancels the fight? But 20 other fighters on the card added up to
almost half a million dollars in purse money that Jones and Greg Jackson’s
decision stole from them. No champion or
headliner in UFC history has ever done that.
As difficult at Tito Ortiz could be… Tito never bailed on a fight.”
“Many people, from fans to PPV distributors, TV networks,
sponsors, and more importantly fighters who are working hard to support their
families and build their careers are hurt badly by this selfish decision.”
Weep not for the hit the coffers of Dana White, Zuffa and TV
networks took. I certainly won’t shed a
tear for them. What does bother me,
though, is the kick in the teeth fans and the other UFC 151 fighters had to
absorb.
Officially, in a court of law, Jones had no duty to look out
for their interests. But in the court of
life… the fans are who’ve made it possible for Jones to get paid for fighting
in a cage. Without them, he’d be working
in a car wash outside of Rochester, asking customers if they wanted to pay
extra for the “wax and shine” treatment.
As for the fighters, they’re Jones’ coworkers, and it’s very
likely that, win or lose, they would not have hesitated in the slightest when
it came to congratulating or consoling the champ at the end of the UFC 151
workday. Was accepting a fight against
Sonnen on eight days’ notice optimal?
No, but these fellow UFC 151 fighters are your bros – do you screw your
bros out of their work opportunities?
At the time of this writing, Jones has agreed to fight Vitor
Belfort at UFC 152, which will likely change once Belfort puts his arm through
a window in training or gets sick with a worm or something. Regardless, we’ll still likely see the UFC’s
light-heavyweight champ fight someone (the UFC needs his presence in the cage
to drive pay-per-view numbers, after all).
But from now until eternity, UFC 151 will be remembered as the event
that never was, cancelled because some guy didn’t want to take one for the
team.
And Jon Jones will be remembered as that guy, the guy that
gave everyone the shaft.