Dana White has touched on how difficult it has been to negotiate with Jon Jones over his career in the UFC as heavyweight fight talks continue to hit a snag.
Ahead of the blockbuster UFC 316 event in Newark, New Jersey this past Saturday, Jon Jones caused shockwaves in the UFC world when he seemingly announced his retirement in a tirade on X (formerly Twitter).
Fans recently made their voices heard regarding Jones’ continuous delaying of a title unification fight against Tom Aspinall when they created a petition to have Jones stripped of the heavyweight title which received over 200,000 signatures.
UFC boss Dana White reacted to the petition this past Saturday following UFC 316, labelling it as ‘f—— silly’.
Dana White compares difficult Jon Jones negotiations to that of Anderson Silva
Throughout the entire saga regarding the heavyweight title unification fight, Dana White has always remained ‘100%’ confident that the fight will happen.
Despite that, answering questions regarding the saga on Saturday night, White admitted that he knew nothing about the heavyweight champion’s recent twitter storm.
As well as that, the UFC boss admitted that negotiations with Jones have always been difficult, comparing him to Anderson Silva in that regard.
“It’s definitely the process with Jon Jones. I’ve been going through this since the day he started here and yeah, it’s definitely the process,” White said as he hinted about how difficult it is to negotiate with Jones.
“Him and Anderson Silva, every time throughout the history of being in the business with those guys, when it comes time to fight it’s like dealing with artists, it’s interesting,” the UFC boss continued.
Although the 37-year-old champion has seemingly made it clear that he has no interest in fighting Aspinall, White has still attempted to keep the faith.
“Yeah, I’ve been saying it since the beginning and Jon Jones agreed to do the fight, so, Jon Jones was offered a deal and accepted the deal,” White stated.
Dana White’s difficult history with Anderson Silva
Throughout ‘The Spider’ Silva’s legendary career in the UFC, White has admitted on several occasions that the Brazilian was ‘difficult’ to deal with during negotiations.
Since Silva’s exit from the UFC in 2019, his relationship with the UFC boss has seemingly gotten worse as he detailed his problem with White is that he talks about fighting when he’s never fought in MMA.