Jon Jones, the former UFC light-heavyweight champion, was stripped of his title and suspended from the UFC after being arrested in April for a hit-and-run in Albuquerque, N.M.. Last month, he was granted probation by a judge. Today, the UFC officially reinstated him.
If you are an MMA fan, this is very good news. Jones is the best mixed martial artist of all time, now firmly in his physical prime, and, judging from various posts to social media and YouTube, motivated as hell to strip down to his skivvies and start hurting other men very badly for large sums of money. If you are a light-heavyweight or heavyweight UFC fighter, Jones’s return is very, very bad news.
Daniel Cormier, the current light-heavyweight champion, won the title after Jones’s suspension by choking out Anthony Johnson and recently defended it by edging out Alexander Gustafsson in a split decision. He is one of the great fighters to ever compete, and Jones beat the hell out of him. Unexpected things often happen in sports, and especially in fighting, but in all likelihood, Jones will return to the cage against Cormier, beat the hell out of him again, and leave the cage with his title. He’ll probably beat the hell out of Johnson and Gustafsson, too, if he so chooses. Jones says that at some point he’ll move to heavyweight, where he will then in all likelihood beat the hell out of larger men. If you are a man weighing 205 or more pounds with ambitious fighting aspirations, you are on notice.
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