Jon Jones Has More Enemies Than Friends In The UFC
Jon Jones is one of the greatest and most controversial figures in MMA today. He's one of the best champions that the world's largest fight promotion has on its roster and he holds many UFC records in the light heavyweight division, including the most title defenses, most wins, longest win streak, and most submission victories. He is also the youngest person in UFC history to become a world champion, claiming the Light Heavyweight crown at 24 years of age.
Despite his comparatively young age, Jones has been in the UFC for a long time and you can't be in the UFC for as long as Jones has without making a few enemies within the roster. Jones has also managed to make some friends with some of the other fighters in the UFC, despite some of his more controversial moments.
So let's go over UFC fighters that hate Jon Jones and those that like him.
15 Hate - Dominick Reyes
Dominick Reyes gave Jon Jones the closest fight of Jones' career since Jones vs Gustaffson I. There is a large portion of MMA fans and analysts that believe that Reyes won that fight and in the days after the match, Reyes posted on social media stating that Jon Jones knows he lost that match.
14 Love - Michelle Waterson
Michelle Waterson and Jon Jones are training partners at the MMA super camp Jackson-Wink Gym in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The pair can be seen hanging out with each other a lot and on each other's social media. After Jon Jones' most recent arrest Michelle posted on social media that she will always be by his side.
13 Hate - Thiago Santos
Thiago Santos is another one of Jon Jones' recent opponents that gave the once thought undetectable champ a pretty hard time. In a familiar case to Dominick Reyes, there were plenty of fans who thought that Santos won this fight and one judge even gave the fight to Santos.
12 Love - Anderson Silva
There is a ton of respect between these two greats. These two are both top contenders for the title of the greatest fighter of all time and both these champions respect each other's achievements. There's even a video floating around of these two having a joke sparring session on the streets.
11 Hate - Rampage Jackson
Similar to his other matches, the lead up to the match-up between Jon Jones and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson was full of venom. There was trash talk from each fighter and the face-off was intense. In their fight, Jones became the first person to ever finish Jackson, doing so via Rear Naked Choke.
10 Love - Georges Saint Pierre
Another UFC great that Jon Jones has a ton of respect for. When GSP made his return against Michael Bisping for the Middleweight title, Jones sent a message to GSP via social media showing support for him. The two even met each other outside a club and avoid the paparazzi together.
9 Hate - Brock Lesnar
This is a bit of a weird one because Brock Lesnar is done with fighting in an octagon. After Jon Jones became the first man to ever knock to ever finish Daniel Cormier with a vicious combo of a head kick and ground and pound. During his post-fight speech, Jones called out Lesnar saying he was going to beat him despite weighing 30 pounds less than him.
8 Love - Ronda Rousey
Ronda and Jones are pretty solid friends at t's very easy to see whenever they interact. Jones also gave Ronda some condolences and advice after her loss to Amanda Nunes through social media. Jones said that "I believe Rousey will be a champion for the rest of her life, even if she never wins another fight."
7 Hate - Chael Sonnen
Chael Sonnen is the man that paved the way for MMA trash talk today and he is still one of the best to do it even though he is now officially retired from the sport. The trash talk between him and Jones was great and seemingly did effect, Jones. Jones later said that Sonnen's trash talk made no sense.
6 Love - Anthony Johnson
Anthony Johnson and Jon Jones is a matchup that came so close to happening but unfortunately, the MMA gods thought we didn't deserve to see it. Despite the disappointment, they had some fun moments, like when they pranked Dana White by making it look like they were going to fight at a press conference.
5 Hate - Luke Rockhold
After losing the Middleweight title Luke Rockhold started talking about how he wanted to move up to Light Heavyweight and challenge Jon Jones for that division's title. Rockhold's first match in the division was against Jan Blachowicz who he was looking past. too bad for Rockhold Blachowicz knocked him out cold.
4 Love - Yair Rodriguez
Yair Rodriguez once spent some time training down Albuquerque, New Mexico when he first decided to start training in locations within the United States. When he went to Jackson-Wink Gym he became a training partner of Jon Jones and there is even some sparring footage of the two floating around.
3 Hate - Israel Adesanya
A more recent development in the Jon Jones hate train, Israel Adesanya and the Light Heavyweight champ have been going back and forth with each other a lot on social media. This started when Israel said that he was going to fight Jones sometime in 2021 and Jones wrote him off.
2 Love - Holly Holm
Holly Holm and Jon Jones have been training partners at Jackson-Wink for a long time. The pair have become champions together and have had a long and documented friendship. You can frequently see them in each other's fight vlogs leading up to matches and Jones even calls Holm an older sister.
1 Hate - Daniel Cormier
Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones probably have the most heated rivalry in the history of MMA and that's saying something. Jones and Cormier's beef go back to their first match where Jones said he was going to kill Cormier. Add in a few canceled matches and some more back and forth and it's easy to see why they don't like each other.
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