Esteemed MMA journalist Ariel Helwani claims Jon Jones turned down a whopping $30million to fight Tom Aspinall earlier this year.
The payday would have been a record-high for a UFC fighter, exceeding Brock Lesnar‘s $8m purse for his bout with Mark Hunt in 2016 by $22m.
To put the figure into perspective, the UFC’s highest career earner, Conor McGregor, is estimated to have pocketed $39.3m in up-front fees during the course of his 14-fight stint with MMA‘s premier promotion.
The revelation begs the question as to why Jones would turn down such a large amount of money.
And Helwani thinks he knows the answer.
“I think he [Jones] didn’t want to fight him [Aspinall],” Helwani told the Impaulsive Podcast.
“I think it was a calculated decision on his part. Why did you drag this out all the way until June when you knew you weren’t going to fight him?
“He gave the UFC a number. I believe it’s in the $30 million range for this fight. And by the way, I think he deserves it.
“He didn’t think they would come up with the number, and they did. I believe Saudi Arabia was involved.
“The big dogs were involved. He said yes, and then two days later he said, ‘Nah, on second thought, I’m out’.
“I think he was hoping they would not meet the number and he could go, ‘Hey guys, I tried’.”
How did Jon Jones vs Tom Aspinall fall apart?
The UFC worked tirelessly to get Jones to defend his heavyweight strap against long-suffering interim title holder Aspinall.
But after toying with the idea for several months, Jones opted to retire from the sport in June.
As a result, Aspinall was elevated to undisputed champion and is now set to defend his crown for the first time against Ciryl Gane on October 25 in Abu Dhabi.
Conveniently, Jones has since declared his intentions to return to the Octagon and recently re-entered the drug testing pool.
Jones even put his name forward to headline the UFC’s historic White House card next July.
However, UFC president Dana White snubbed Jones’ offer due to his lack of reliability.
“It’s not about him just winning the belt,” White said.
“You know how I felt about him. I can’t risk putting him in big positions—in a big spot—and have something go wrong. Especially the White House card.”
It remains unclear whether Jones will ever return to the UFC.
But, if he does, it seems unlikely it will be against Aspinall.
Jones stated on multiple occasions that he had no interest in fighting Aspinall.
It seems far more plausible that he would share the cage with Alex Pereira, whom he had previously named as a more appealing proposition than the Mancunian.