During Thursday’s UFC 152 pre-fight press conference, light heavyweight champion Jon Jones stated that UFC President Dana White or UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta did not tell him that UFC 151 would be canceled if he turned down a fight against Chael Sonnen.
However, White said after yesterday’s weigh-in’s that Jones knew the card would be canceled if he did not accept the fight.
“The fact that he says that he didn’t know the show would be canceled is false,” White told Ariel Helwani on yesterday’s weigh-in show on FUEL TV. “I did tell him that the show would be canceled. I think he takes this thing or acting like he is taking it lightly, which he shouldn’t be. The fact that fight was canceled isn’t a joke. It’s not funny and a lot of people were affected by it. There was a lot of collateral damage that happened with the cancellation of that show.”
The UFC President believes that his champion needs to take the situation more serious than he currently is and the two men met with each other late yesterday afternoon in Toronto. It’s unknown how the meeting went between them.
White is hoping that the face to face meeting with Jones will fix the problems and both men will likely be asked about the meeting at tonight’s post fight press conference, which both are scheduled to appear at.