{"id":7727,"date":"2025-06-23T10:19:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T10:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/7727\/"},"modified":"2025-06-23T10:19:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T10:19:10","slug":"dana-white-names-the-only-fighter-jon-jones-ever-ducked-and-its-not-tom-aspinall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/7727\/","title":{"rendered":"Dana White names the only fighter Jon Jones ever ducked and it\u2019s not Tom Aspinall"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Dana White maintains that Jon Jones didn\u2019t duck a fight with Tom Aspinall. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Talks for a unification bout between the two UFC heavyweight champions have been ongoing all year. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bloodyelbow.com\/tag\/jon-jones\/\" data-type=\"post_tag\" data-id=\"351\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jon Jones<\/a> repeatedly distanced himself from the matchup before <a href=\"https:\/\/bloodyelbow.com\/2025\/06\/21\/jon-jones-avoids-tom-aspinall-in-first-statement-as-he-confirms-retirement-following-dana-white-announcement\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announcing his retirement<\/a> on Saturday. <\/p>\n<p>As a result, <a href=\"https:\/\/bloodyelbow.com\/tag\/tom-aspinall\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tom Aspinall<\/a> has been elevated to undisputed status, and some fans have been calling the <a href=\"https:\/\/bloodyelbow.com\/2024\/11\/05\/top-10-ufc-fighters-of-all-time-includes-conor-mcgregor-jon-jones-and-two-formidable-heavyweight-champions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">greatest fighter in MMA history<\/a> a \u2018duck\u2019.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/GettyImages-2185189140-1-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Jon Jones during his final UFC fight at UFC 309\" class=\"wp-image-209980\" \/>Photo by Chris Unger\/Zuffa LLCDana White names only fighter Jon Jones ducked <\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, the UFC CEO spoke with Bloody Elbow and other media at the <a href=\"https:\/\/bloodyelbow.com\/2025\/06\/22\/dana-white-steps-in-as-brawl-almost-breaks-out-at-canelo-alvarez-vs-terence-crawford-press-conference\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Canelo Alvarez vs Terence Crawford press conference<\/a> in New York. <\/p>\n<p>White insisted that the only time Jones ducked a fight was when he refused to face <a href=\"https:\/\/bloodyelbow.com\/tag\/chael-sonnen\/\" data-type=\"post_tag\" data-id=\"321\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chael Sonnen<\/a> on late notice, which resulted in UFC 151 becoming the first event cancelled by MMA\u2019s premier promotion in September 2012.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo,\u201d White said when asked if Jones had ducked Aspinall by retiring.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJon Jones, I\u2019ve said it a million times, I\u2019ll say it again, he\u2019s never ducked anybody. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cOther than that one goofy time with the Chael Sonnen thing. Never ducked anybody.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhatever changed his mind with this matchup, I don\u2019t know, you\u2019ll have to ask him that. But he\u2019s [about to be] 38 years old. I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Jon Jones recalls angering Dana White with UFC 151 refusal<\/p>\n<p>A few days before retiring, <a href=\"https:\/\/bloodyelbow.com\/2025\/06\/19\/jon-jones-recalls-his-biggest-bust-up-with-dana-white-that-pissed-him-off\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jones recalled his biggest bust-up<\/a> with White.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUFC 151, me refusing to fight Chael Sonnen,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cMan, he just didn\u2019t see the logic in it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you\u2019re not the one in there creating the art, then it\u2019s easy to say how it is to create the art.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI respect the process, and I have to show respect in the way that I do things.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, that p\u2014ed him off though.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dana White maintains that Jon Jones didn\u2019t duck a fight with Tom Aspinall. Talks for a unification bout&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[5191,5192,560,62,5193,552,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-7727","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-dana-white","9":"tag-jon-jones","10":"tag-mma","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tom-aspinall","13":"tag-ufc","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114732175546169494","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}