Jon Jones still thinks about the UFC White House card, and he doesn’t sound at peace with it.
In a conversation with The Schmo, the former two-division champion called his absence from the event one of the few nights in his career that genuinely stung. “There was the White House card,” Jones said. “That was one of the few nights in my career where I just was thinking, ‘I should have been there.’ I usually don’t regret decisions, but that was one of my big regrets in life, not being a part of the White House. But if I never fight again, I think I’m pretty damn happy.”
That last line is doing a lot of work. Jones also told The Schmo, “I really do believe that was my last moment inside the cage,” referring to UFC 309.
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How he got left off
The backstory is messier than a simple snub. Jones last fought in November 2024, stopping Stipe Miocic by TKO in the UFC 309 main event at a sold-out Madison Square Garden to defend the heavyweight title. That fight had already been pushed back a year by a pectoral injury, and plenty of people were annoyed the UFC froze the division waiting on him.
After Miocic, Jones retired. Then a unification fight with then-interim champ Tom Aspinall, which MMA Fighting reported the promotion had agreed to on Jones’ terms, never happened. Jones later ended his retirement to chase a spot on the White House card, campaigning practically from the moment it was announced, and even tried apologizing to the UFC for leaving it hanging on the Aspinall fight.
Per MMA Fighting, none of it moved the needle. Jones wasn’t considered. The June event in Washington, D.C., billed as UFC Freedom 250 and held on the South Lawn, went ahead with an interim heavyweight title fight between Ciryl Gane and Alex Pereira in the co-main slot.
Looking back at Miocic
Jones framed UFC 309 as a pretty good way to go out. “And it was great. I got to fight, my brother was still alive at the time, my father was there,” he said, also noting he got to profess his faith and salute the president from the cage. On Miocic, he said, “Stipe Miocic was considered the greatest heavyweight of all-time. You know, we’re both older, but to defeat him, I don’t really see how it can get bigger than that.”
These days he’s in a coaching role, and that hasn’t been smooth either. His heavyweight protege Gable Steveson, an Olympic gold medalist, went off as a -2400 favorite at UFC 331 and got knocked out by Sean Sharaf in 12 seconds. Jones told The Schmo the team needs to add a lot more sparring and compared the loss to Georges St-Pierre getting caught by Matt Serra at UFC 69. He’s also backing Jackson Wink teammate Josh Hokit to upset Gane at UFC 334.
Quick take
Jones gets no sympathy from me on the timeline. He had a unification fight with Aspinall on the table and walked away, and the UFC was under zero obligation to roll out the South Lawn for him after that. But the matchmakers swapped a guy who’d never really been beaten for an interim belt fight on the biggest stage the company has ever built, and I’ll never cheer an interim strap getting that slot. If Gane gets past Hokit at UFC 334, Jones gets to watch the White House co-main guy keep rolling while he coaches from the corner, and I’d bet that regret gets a little louder.
