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Jon Jones has an impressive case to be made for MMA GOAT status, but one always wonders what his record would look like if he hadn’t self-sabotaged himself multiple times over the years.
Jones himself seems to wonder the same thing. In a recent interview with The Ring Magazine, the former UFC light heavyweight and heavyweight champion was asked if he could change something in his career, he said he’d never start drinking or partying.
“Well, you know, I became a little bit of a party boy when I was young,” Jones admitted. “And sometimes I ask myself, ‘Jon, how much farther would you have been if you would have never started with the alcohol?’ I feel all my setbacks in life have been directly related to alcohol. And I’ve been able to achieve some amazing things and reach some pretty amazing heights. But I feel like things could have been even much, much higher if I’d have never gotten into partying.”
“So to all you young athletes out there, just keep things in check, you know? Keep things in check. I guess that’s what I’ll say.”
Jones’ accolades are nuts. Youngest champion ever in the UFC at 23. A champion in two divisions, a two-time champion at light heavyweight. 11 total light heavyweight title defenses (eight the first time and three the second). Most wins in UFC title fights at 16.
But he also holds some impressive negative numbers: five UFC belts relinquished or stripped, three drug suspensions. Two DUI’s (that were proven), one involving a gun, and he was arrested for domestic battery on his fiancé the night of his UFC Hall of Fame induction in 2021. In his most recent brush with the law, recordings of a 2025 phone call captured an intoxicated Jones threatening to have a police officer murdered.
Following the Hall of Fame incident, Jones declared “I have way too much trauma to consume alcohol, my brain simply can’t handle it anymore, I will leave alcohol in my past forever.” That hasn’t stuck, though, as there are plenty of recent pictures and videos (and criminal accusations) that show Jones is still drinking.
Jones has suggested in random late night tweet-and-delete sessions that he has a handle on the situation now, and we certainly hope he does. Jones may not know exactly what he may have accomplished if it wasn’t for the alcohol, but he lived through the consequences. Does there have to be more?
