Legendary boxing analyst Teddy Atlas thinks UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones has an obligation to defend his title.
Jones (28-1 MMA, 22-1 UFC) has held the heavyweight belt for a year-and-a-half now but is yet to unify with interim champion Tom Aspinall. He opted to make his first title defense against Stipe Miocic this past November at UFC 309, a fight he won by third-round TKO.
Aspinall (15-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC) is growing extremely impatient, but UFC CEO Dana White remains positive that the title unification bout will happen this year. Atlas weighed in on the situation.
“Jon Jones has been inactive in spots in his career,” Atlas said in an interview with Slingo. “There’s no doubt about it, and you could say, well, now you are keeping the title hostage. Yeah, I’ll use a strong word, because that’s where you’re going. And again, I think there’s two different things here. One is personally as a competitor, as a champion. That word invokes more than just the ability to fight.
“It invokes how you behave, how you carry yourself, what you believe in. And he’s a champion. I believe he’s a real champion. He always has been. He always behaves like one, so I think that you do have a personal obligation to (behave like a champion and) kind of deal with that. Then (you have to) deal with what comes with being a champion – you’ve got to give someone else a chance to get what you had a chance to get within a certain period.”
Despite Aspinall breaking the UFC record for longest-reigning interim champion, there has been to threat of Jones being stripped of his UFC heavyweight title. Atlas wonders how long Jones will be able to remain champion without unifying his belt as the champion continues to brag about living his best life.
“But then comes the other thing. What are the rules?” Atlas continued. “What are the enforcements? What are the mechanisms in place in this sport, in this business? What are the rules, and are they being enforced? And if they’re not being enforced, and they’re not being obliged by, they’re not being lived up to or paid attention to, then you know what the repercussions are. There has to be an enforcement part of those rules. You can’t have rules if there’s no enforcement of those rules. I mean, what’s the sense of having rules?”
