Opinion: Good Riddance to the GOAT

Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sherdog.com, its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Evolve Media.

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The Ultimate Fighting Championship couldn’t have picked a better time to have a subpar event. Outside of a barnburner between Nazim Sadykhov and Nikolas Motta, the rest of UFC Baku was anywhere between average and flat-out boring.

However, no one is going to remember that, as roughly an hour after the event wrapped up, UFC President Dana White announced that heavyweight champion Jon Jones was retired, and interim titleholder Tom Aspinall was being promoted to undisputed champion. Jones confirmed White’s announcement on X later in the evening. With that news, no one is going to remember anything else that came out of Azerbaijan.

Given the suddenness of the announcement and the frequency of fighters coming back to the sport after announcing they were done, there is a hint of this retirement being less than permanent. The likes of Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz, BJ Penn, Fedor Emelianenko and Georges St-Pierre all came back after their announced retirements. Word is, Matt Hughes would have joined that club too, if not for his train accident. Given Jones’ ego and the history of MMA retirements, it’s hard to see this being his end in the sport.

That said, regardless of whether this is the actual end of Jones career, the general consensus is: Good riddance to the GOAT. Jones’ arrogance has produced what the professional wrestling community knows as “X-Pac heat.” Typically, wrestlers getting boos is a good thing, as an indicator that fans want to see them lose. In the early 2000s, a wrestler known as X-Pac had a heelish schtick that had grown so tiresome among fans that they just wanted him to go away. Fans don’t care if they see Jones at this point; they just want him to go away.

Jones’ arrogance has become unbearable in the last few years and considering the baseline level from which it started, that’s really saying something. Ignoring the fact that in order to gain monetary value, one needs to produce a product or service demanded by the market, Jones has insisted on doing whatever he wants, ignoring the pleas of the fans to defend his title against Aspinall. Given the sport he’s in and the success he’s found, Jones received the benefit of the doubt from pundits, even if fans declared he was scared to face Aspinall. The thought was that he was holding out for more money. When it got to the point that reports indicated the UFC wasn’t holding back on his demands, it was hard to believe he wasn’t ducking Aspinall as Jones still refused to accept the fight. Thus, his status as undisputed champion became very disputed. In fact, considering that Aspinall has been interim champion since November 2023, Jones title has very much been disputed for over a year and a half.

All the while, Jones has mocked fans and Aspinall via social media, claiming among other things that he was “living his best life.” He saw no need to give into fans’ hopes and expectations and defend his belt. That was even after the UFC caved in to his earlier demand that he defend against former heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic despite Aspinall having claimed the interim title. Given that Miocic hadn’t won a fight in over four years at the time he clashed with Jones, while Aspinall had bulldozed both Sergei Pavlovich and Curtis Blaydes in the previous year, fans had zero interest in seeing Miocic fight Jones. Despite that, the UFC gave him what he wanted. In response, Jones rewarded the organization and the fans by laughing at them and refusing to defend his belt.

That went on long enough that many ended up tuning out, hoping the UFC would move on from Jones. If he didn’t want to take the responsibilities that come with being the champion, then he shouldn’t be champion, the reasoning appeared to be. Throw in that Jones has an extensive history of legal and personal misconduct—there are few in professional sports with a longer legal rap sheet—and the question becomes for fans: Why? Jones has likely avoided greater consequences from the law due to his celebrity status, so he’s already been the beneficiary of fame. Without the fans, he’s not a celebrity, but he can’t find any way to offer them gratitude?

Speaking of legal issues, it also came out that Jones is in another ongoing legal issue stemming from an alleged hit-and-run incident in February. Reports indicate intoxication on the part of Jones and his party in the vehicle are a factor, another sign that handling Jones with kid's gloves isn’t working. Perhaps he’s only agreeing to relinquish the belt on his own recognizance rather than again having it stripped from him. At least this way, it can be said he was decent enough to give it up himself. At least I’m guessing that’s a part of it.

The thing is, whether Jones is officially gone or not, I’m not shedding any tears. I don’t want to offer any support to someone who has been given as many opportunities as he has only for them to continually laugh at and spit in the face of those who support him. If the latest legal issues that he’s dealing with turn out to be something he’s guilty of, he’s still an unrepentant criminal, only proving he’s been better at hiding it in recent years. There hadn’t been any outright disasters since the infamous incident in which his children called police from a hotel because of an altercation between Jones and their mother. Until now.

While Jones is arguably the GOAT, he’s probably going to be a major what-if story too. How much better could he have been if he wasn’t dabbling with drugs? How much better could he have been if he didn’t have to deal with legal issues for such a large chunk of his career? How much better would his legacy be if he didn’t duck Aspinall? For someone as protective of their legacy as Jones is, it’s astonishing he didn’t consider how damaging to his legacy just the appearance of ducking Aspinall would be. Unless Jones comes back from his retirement to challenge Aspinall, that will forever be a dark cloud on his legacy. In fact, it may be the thing that keeps many from naming him the GOAT. Regardless, I don’t care anymore. I’m done with Jones’ antics. I’m done with his arrogance. I’m done with him. Good riddance.