Arguably the biggest story in MMA this year has been the ongoing contract negotiations between the UFC and Jon Jones. After vacating his light heavyweight title last year to move up to heavyweight, Jones was ostensibly in line to challenge the winner of UFC 260\u2019s heavyweight title fight between Stipe Miocic and Francis Ngannou. However, after Ngannou knocked out Miocic to claim the belt, Jones and UFC President Dana White almost immediately began arguing over compensation. That has continued over the past few months with the UFC now seemingly set on moving forward and booking Ngannou against Derrick Lewis later this summer. In response, Jones has said he\u2019s willing to sit out and wait, much to the chagrin of fans. But, another all-time great fighter believes that is the correct course of action for Jones to take.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Jon should fight the champion, not Stipe,\u201d UFC Hall of Famer Georges St-Pierre said on Steve-O\u2019s Wild Ride podcast. \u201cI think he should fight Francis Ngannou, the champion. I believe, if I\u2019m Jon Jones – when we talk about this, we talk about it like a chess game because these are big important decisions that you make. Fighting, there\u2019s always a question. Because you think you beat one guy doesn\u2019t mean that even if the odds favor you, doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re always gonna win. I think it would be a mistake for Jon Jones to fight Stipe.\u201d<\/p>\n
St-Pierre is not stranger to contract disputes with the UFC, repeatedly having issues with the organization during his tenure as champion and especially during negotiations for his return bout against Michael Bisping. Even recently, St-Pierre butted heads with Dana White after White prevented him from boxing Oscar De La Hoya, due to promotional rights the UFC still retains over St-Pierre.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake though, GSP isn\u2019t saying Jones should avoid fighting Miocic because he would lose. GSP just believes it\u2019s an unnecessary risk that Jones would be taking. Instead, he can wait to fight for the belt and once he claims his second UFC title, Jones will have substantially more leverage, or can just move on to whatever is next in his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe Jon Jones will beat Stipe, however, why take the risk of fighting Stipe when you can wait and fight the champion, if you can, and collect two belts,\u201d St-Pierre said. \u201cThen after, Jon Jones the greatest of all time, if he does that he can run off into the sunset. His stock will be as high as – more higher than anybody ever. Another world will open for him as he retires. He can do whatever he wants. The problem is, guys hang there in the sport for too long. They are considered the best but they hang there too long so now their stock goes down and they retire as their stock are down so when they retire, the door does not open for them because they already broke. Their stock is bad. So that\u2019s why you should retire on top.\u201d<\/p>\n
St-Pierre is generally seen as having a near-perfect MMA career, and is often cited as the example by which young fighters should attempt to follow. After wining the middleweight title in his return bout, he then retired from MMA in 2019 when talks of a possible superfight with Khabib Nurmagomedov were squashed by Dana White. Instead, St-Pierre is continuing on with a number of other business endeavors, including his nascent acting career. Jones is in a very similar position to St-Pierre and could follow in GSP\u2019s footsteps if he so chose. However, so long as he continues to pursue fighting, St-Pierre\u2019s advice to Jones and to all other fighters is to maximize everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to fight for every inch of it,\u201d St-Pierre said. \u201cI don\u2019t do that. It\u2019s not my job. I\u2019m not qualified to do that but I have very qualified people who do that for me and I think a fighter, one of his jobs, is to choose carefully his team. That he hires people he can trust but also who are qualified to do the job to represent him well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones recently did just that, retaining former Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer as a career advisor. Schaefer is known in the combat sports world as a deal maker and has said that his \u201cone task\u201d right now is to deliver a Jon Jones vs. Francis Ngannou. If he can do so and Jones can win a title in his second weight class, perhaps Jon Jones can end his career like Georges St-Pierre did – on top.<\/p>\n
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