UFC president Dana White has tried his best over the years to overturn the one setback on the record of Jon Jones.
Jones — widely regarded as the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world as well as the GOAT for many — has one defeat on his professional MMA record but it was only by way of disqualification due to illegal elbows in his 2009 fight against Mark Hamill.
Despite that, many in the combat sports world still view Jones as undefeated with many believing he shouldn’t have been disqualified in the first place, but rather, have the fight be a no contest especially as he was dominating Hamill.
White has tried to do just that by getting the Nevada State Athletic Commission to overturn the defeat. However, it’s been to no avail thus far.
“One of the greatest to ever do it,” White told ESPN when talking about Jones being the GOAT of the sport. “… I’ve battled hard to try and get that one taken off the back of his record, it’s almost impossible to do. Which is insane — it’s crazy that that thing doesn’t go away.
“At the time, when the Nevada State Athletic Commission was at its weakest, the guy who was running it was weak, the people who were involved in it were weak. Everybody was weak at that time. You should be able to look back and say, ‘okay let’s make this right.’
“… So far no good, I’ve really, really worked hard to try and get that one taken off his record but it’s not looking good.”
Although it’s not something that seems to bother Jones — since he has never been physically defeated inside the Octagon — it would still look good for his record if he were to end up retiring with no further defeats.
One thing is for sure though. Even with his recent subpar performances, Jones is undoubtedly a strong GOAT contender — even with the one loss on his record.
