Early this week former UFC light heavyweight Jon Jones broke his half year plus media silence that followed his felony hit-and-run arrest.
Simultaneously, then UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey was in the midst of the busiest year of any fighter in UFC history. Last year Rousey published a New York Times best-selling autobiography, with massive media duties. She also filmed and released multiple Hollywood movies, with massive media duties. And she had three title shots in nine months, each with massive media duties. The fights alone are beyond what most champions can do. And there are well publicized conflicts within her team, with her coach facing potential financial ruin.?
Never the less, Rousey reached out to Jones with an offer for help, in what he described as his “darkest hour.”
“Ronda has actually been very supportive of me,” said Jones, as transcribed by Marc Raimondi for MMAFighting. “She texted me quite a few times, man. She even invited me to come and stay at her beach house in California. ‘Jon, you’re going to come back from this. Anything I can do for you, you let me know. If you want to get away, I got a house here and not many people know where it’s at or whatever. It’s your house until you get right.’”
“Stuff like that just shows you, man, this girl is on top of the world right now and she’s sitting here thinking about me at my darkest hour. That’s something that I’ll never forget.”
Jones reported UFC interim featherweight champion Conor McGregor reached out as well.
“He said], ‘Hey champ, once a champ, always a champ. I believe you’re going to come back from this strong,’” said Jones. “Just writing these words of encouragement.”
“A lot of people believe in me. They know I get fired up from adversity. I’m not a guy that crawls up into a ball and quits when things get hard. I’m a fighter. I’m resilient. A lot of people just felt that Jon is going to come back and fight. And sure enough, that’s what I’m getting ready to do.”
Jones was reinstated by the UFC in October, and is expected to return for a fight with current champion Daniel Cormier during the first half of 2016.
