“MMA will always be a part of who I am,” Jon Jones said soon after Dana White announced the 2-weight champion’s abrupt retirement. Some fans and fighters applauded ‘Bones’ for a successful career, while many others lashed out at the heavyweight fighter for visibly avoiding Tom Aspinall and putting the heavyweight division in limbo. Nevertheless, one thing’s clear—Jon Jones’ UFC career was one of a kind. From becoming the youngest UFC champion to retiring as the oldest champion on the roster, ‘Bones’ came full circle. But there is one more aspect to his legacy—he’s one of the seven key figures who ruled the UFC world during the 2011 era.
In that list, Jones was the final champion to hang up his gloves. Taking to Instagram, the Albuquerque resident shared a post by Unforgettable MMA on his story. The post showed the iconic picture from the UFC Champions Summit in 2011. The caption to the post read, “All UFC champions from the legendary 2011 era are now retired.” Who are the 7 legendary champs?
On the extreme left sat Cain Velasquez, who became a champion after defeating Brock Lesnar in 2010. Next up was Jones, who’d just become the youngest champion in the promotion. Anderson Silva was next, followed by Georges St-Pierre. To GSP’s right was Frankie Edgar, who defeated BJ Penn thrice. The final two entries were Jose Aldo and Dominick Cruz. Imagine that—Jones was champion when fighters like Silva and St-Pierre were active champions.
Following Jones’ retirement, Gordon Ryan, penned a special message for the heavyweight champ. He had the pleasure of working with ‘Bones’ as his Jiu-Jitsu coach, giving the ADCC champion enough time to assess the mixed martial artist. Celebrating Jones’ retirement, ‘King Ryan’ wrote on IG, “Anyone can get to the UFC. Anyone can win the belt. That stuff is easy… but to be on top with a target on your back, for more than a decade, beating multiple generations of fighters, staying ahead of the curve, and never losing… that is something special.” This resonated with the 37-year-old when he stumbled across the aforementioned picture from UFC Champions Summit 2011.
Jon Jones shared the image on his IG Story with the caption, “I guess everybody else gets to retire – just not when you’re still dominating. Funny how that works. Forget personal goals, forget business ventures. Some folks really believe you should fight until they say you’ve had enough. Wild. Imagine thinking a grown man shouldn’t control his own destiny.”
Of course, many stars, including the current heavyweight champion and his father, Andy Aspinall, repeatedly called for his retirement. Many even claimed that the retirement, even though it was to be expected, was a stain on Jones’ legacy. But not everyone seemed offended by the former champion’s retirement. And Aljamain Sterling was one of them.
Aljamain Sterling takes a stance to support Jon Jones upon his retirement
During a Q&A session on his YouTube channel, the former bantamweight champion weighed in on the claims that Jones tarnished his legacy by ducking Aspinall and retiring. According to Sterling, these claims were bogus. He said, “I don’t think Jon’s retiring is a stain on his legacy either. I know some people are trying to paint that narrative, but how? How can a guy who’s defended his championship title more than 10 times have a stain on his legacy because he decided not to fight one more time?”
Sterling understood what Jones was trying to do. After all, a fight against Aspinall wasn’t a necessity for the Rochester-born fighter. Instead, he wanted to fight someone well-established like Francis Ngannou. Nevertheless, a fight between Jones and Aspinall would have been pretty interesting. And ‘Funk Master’ knows that pretty well. He continued, “Now, as a selfish fan—the selfish fan in me—I would love to watch Jon Jones fight Tom Aspinall. Of course, I want to see Jon Jones fight Tom Aspinall. It’s a crazy fight. It’s a crazy fight.”
Jones seemed to appreciate the arguments that Sterling presented in his defense. When ‘Funk Master’ shared these words with his Instagram followers, ‘Bones’ took to the comments and wrote, “My Guy.” It’s worth noting that close to 200,000 fight fans wanted to strip Jones of his belt through an online petition. But we just can’t deny the humongous impact the former 2-weight champion had on the sport. It’ll be interesting to see what’s next for him.
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