As you may or may not have heard recently, former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is back off suspension and in the UFC again. Following his sentencing for a hit and run collision back in April of 2015, Jones has had the conduct suspension that saw his championship belt stripped from him, removed. He’s still not champion, but he’s free to fight again and it’s expected that he’ll return to title contention in short order. At least one fighter isn’t too happy about it, and no, it’s not Daniel Cormier.
Speaking to Inside MMA, Rampage told Kenny Rice and Bas Rutten that while he hopes that Jones returns having learned from his experiences, he’s not exactly happy to have him back in the sport (transcription via MMAMania):
“I hope he comes back. I hope he learns from his mistake…. But I’m not saying it because I’m a fan of Jon Jones because honestly I think that Jon Jones is bad for the sport, because when he fights people, he injures us. He kicked my knee backwards, my knee is never the same. He’s done it to a couple other guys. I saw him rip one guy’s shoulder out his socket. We just try to the same thing he’s trying to do, earn a living and do the sport that we love. We don’t go in there to try and injure people, even though I tried to fold an opponent in half, but he made me angry, it was something that he did to me, I had a history…. But this guy’s doing it to every opponent. He’s kicking their knees backwards and really trying to hurt people. So I think that’s bad for the sport.”
Rampage himself is currently stuck in his own form of contractual limbo as he tries to get his next fight sorted between Bellator and the UFC. After jumping ship on Bellator for their failure to meet his contractual obligations, Rampage got a judge to strike down a Bellator injunction to keep him from competing in the UFC. But that was only a temporary measure, and he’s been stuck in a legal battle with the Viacom promotion ever since. He recently said that he was on the brink of retiring, just to get away from it all, but it sounds like he may return to Bellator to complete the fights on his contract sometime in the near future. Until then, we’ll have to settle for hearing from him outside the cage.
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