Published On: Mon, May 5th, 2025

‘Fight this summer or be stripped’: Fans react to Jon Jones return vow, biggest MMA stories of the week

UFC 309: Jones v Miocic - Press Conference
Jon Jones | Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC

Jon Jones is planning to fight again. For real, this time!

The light heavyweight great and current “undisputed” (they keep using that word) UFC heavyweight champion released a lengthy statement this week assuring his legion of loyal fans that “the story’s still being written.” This, despite Jones showing no sign of booking a fight since running over a retiring Stipe Miocic this past November at UFC 309 and definitely wanting nothing to do with interim—or as the MMA Fighting team refers to him, real—champion Tom Aspinall, who is waiting for the UFC to give him a 2025 assignment.

If the tone here is a tad glib, it’s only reflective of the growing consensus that whatever Jones decides to do next, it’s unlikely to be satisfying. All credit to Jones for his past accomplishments, he truly owes us nothing, but when it feels like you’re conspiring with the UFC to avoid arguably the biggest fight you could make in all of MMA today, well, people have a right to be irritated.

Don’t believe me? Check out what y’all had to say about Jones’ latest shenanigans.

Nicolas Caged
He's gonna keeping dragging this farce of a HW reign out for the rest of the 2025. Tom is the longest reigning interim champ, he hasn't fought since last July. Please UFC do the right thing and stop the insanity! Jon should agree to fight this summer or be stripped! Am I right or am I right?
#JusticeforTom #StripJonJones

Igl00Man
Yet no effort has been made to fight Tom Aspinall…
Tom, what do you think of Jon Jones right now?

Abstractions
Anything but signing the contract.

BigLoy
Not that this really matters, but this absolutely smacks of Chat GPT.

NutsoBullotso
Its very rare to hear someone talk about themselves as if they were a commentor about that person. People usually say "I have had I credible time, I have had great success, I have learned from mistakes, always driven myself". Etc etc.
Not Jon. "Special, epic, legendary" This is what the people writing about him would say.
He is a weird dude.

$ SOL
"The story's still being written"…He's the George RR Martin of defending the HW belt.

Reinier de Ridder flattens Bo Nickal with brutal body shot knockout, calls out Sean Strickland

Bo Nickal faced his toughest test yet at UFC Des Moines, matched up with a former two-division ONE champion with three times the amount of fights and, well, it went poorly for him. Reinier de Ridder showed no mercy, out-grappling the three-time NCAA wrestling champion and then finishing him with brutal striking.

Suffice to say, when one of the most hyped MMA prospects ever falls flat, folks are going to have something to say about.

AFreestyleTyper
Bo knows quitting.

7thLayerOfHair
That was a dismantling. Back to the drawing board for Bo.

HotThunder
easily one of the worst quits that has been in the octagon, not like it was to the liver, just quit from being winded

iamthekeyboardwarrior
Bo didn't like getting beat up for the first time. We didn't know if he could be a nail because he's always the hammer. So called experts in the lead up said Nickal had better striking lol. Hopefully RDR starts getting some well earned respect. He's a beast.

jesusjr
Young enough that Bo could recover from this but his credentials and resume scream that he should be much further than were he is in career. He just never really showed the wow factor and starting too look like his limitations are closer than we thought.

UK Watching
Thought Bo was going to KO RDR? The kid had nothing. It was such a mismatch that RDR held back when Bo was down, others would not have been so forgiving. There is still some arrogance need knocking out of the kid.

Choi Hong-Superman
Bo absolutely did need some humble pie. Just a few months back he was comparing himself to the GOATS and whatnot…

MoodCrusher
The only thing I disagree is with people calling Bo a derailed hype, because that takes away some shine from the absolutely flawless performance displayed by RDR.

Paddy Pimblett documents massive 40-pound weight cut for UFC 314

Massive weight fluctuation between fights is nothing new for Paddy Pimblett, but fans are still wondering how the lightweight contender keeps getting away with it.

DustinsWoifesDMs
Paddy has grown on me but this guy is the ultimate weight bully. The size difference between him and Chandler was shocking.

Edged
So, the math is:
~190 pounds to ~170 pounds over 7 weeks. 2.85lbs/week equates to about 0.4lbs a day, which is about a ~1400 calorie deficit a day. He mentioned his diet was set at 2000 calories, so seems reasonable with training he's burning >3400 calories a day.
That's still an insanely unhealthy and non-optimal way to train for a fight trying to lose weight at that rate. Dude has to feel absolutely depleted and drained for a full 7 week fight camp. I imagine most fighters are dieting to cut down several pounds before a fight, but huge difference doing something reasonable like 1lb/week over nearly 3lb/week.
I actually think him starting his weight cut at 170lbs is lighter than some other lightweights so good on him dieting to not have a even horrible weight cut.

MMA_Devils_Advocate
some of these fighter are such morons……health issues aside but next time when commission sees these articles and ban them competing and remove them from events at their weight class they will cry and complain….smh

MoodCrusher
Really, these guys agree to be knocked out of their consciousness for a living, and people tuning in to see it are worried about their questionable health choices?

Oleg D
it's all fun and games while you're young. But he's getting older and every weight cut like this is taking its toll, so he better get his sh together befor this practice catches up with him in a bad way

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson transforms into UFC legend Mark Kerr in ‘The Smashing Machine’ trailer

Dwayne Johnson is going award-hunting with his latest film, the Mark Kerr biopic The Smashing Machine directed by Benny Safdie. It’s unclear if Rocky has the acting chops to take this project to the next level, but buzz is definitely starting to build for it.

Jin_Kasama
This looks way better than I expected

Beeunleashed
Looks like it will be a pretty good docu-drama, but it's still a little odd having the Rock, who is in his 50's, and only a few years younger than Kerr play him when he was in his 20's and 30's.

stippenstoh
If Benny Safdie made this it could not suck, I'll watch.

ViolenceisGolden
Please don't mess this up, Dwayne.

EvilJ
The thing about it is that I already know that Dwayne has literally zero range as an actor, and from the trailer I can also tell that he doesn't look like Kerr, he doesn't sound like Kerr, he doesn't behave like Kerr, he's just bloody awful. So knowing all that plus hearing what the screener audience members are saying, I can bet my house that this is going to be a stinker.

Sucks for people like Bader, Bas, Emily Blunt, Enson, and all the rest of the cast. I really like the idea of Bader as Coleman, and along with my stinker prediction I'll just predict that Ryan Bader will act circles around Dwayne without even being an actor.

Sean O’Malley beats up professional poker player Frankie C in sparring session

Real talk: I have no idea who any of these people are that keep signing up to get knocked around by MMA fighters and I don’t think I want to know. Plenty of you feel the same.

beckett929
I don't know what's sadder – the chumps doing this for the attention, the fighters that think it means anything, or you guys continuingly covering this nonsense.

Dwayne_Chapman
Remember the days when you could count on zero hands how many times someone like GSP beat up some wannabe celeb in sparring? Can we go back to that.

$ SOL
I'm going to pitch a show to Endeavor where pros fight talkers on the street or online derps. Easy money. Because apparently there's fools who will watch it and people who will write about it.

AvgJ

O'Malley, for his part, seemed to want to leave an impression with Frankie C without actually hurting him.

"I want him to feel like he got hit by a truck"

Yeah, that checks out.

MoodCrusher
I still can't believe this clown has locked an instant rematch for the title after being completely nullified by Merab.

ForSerious
Last KO win before retirement by Merab I guess.

Poll of the Week

The people have spoken!

In other news…

  • Ryan Garcia and Devin Haney both fought Friday at Times Square in New York… and they both stunk!
  • Hey, Canelo also fought this weekend. And he also stunk!
  • Don’t call it a comeback! No, seriously, don’t. Robbie Lawler is still being drug-tested but he sounds confident he won’t fight again, thank goodness.
  • Francis Ngannou released a statement addressing his involvement in the tragic motorcycle accident in his native Cameroon that resulted in the death of a 17-year-old girl.
  • Sam Alvey knocked out Tyrone Spong—Wait a minute, what?
  • And Phil Davis also won a fight by knockout? What is happening???
  • Stamp Fairtex isn’t returning to action anytime soon 🙁
  • Welterweight champion Belal Muhammad will proudly fly the flag of Palestine this Saturday at UFC 315.

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