One of the hottest prospects and emerging stars in the UFC has seen his rush of success and publicity come to an abrupt halt because of an injury. The news came out Monday that Jon Bones Jones had to pull out of his upcoming title fight with Rashad Evans at UFC 133 because of a hand injury. Phil Davis will replace Jones in the August fight and headline the main event.
Bones’ management team, Authentic Sports Management, issued a statement that explains the injury in more detail. They say “Jones has torn tissue in his right hand in the area between his thumb and forefinger.” They also added the following quote from Bones “This is an injury that’s been recurring since I was a college wrestler, it doesn’t affect my punching or grappling, but I am taking the time and the proper measures to correct this now, so that it doesn’t happen again,” said Jones. “I look forward to getting back to training and to my first title defense. As for Rashad, let’s see what happens with Phil Davis. I will be watching that fight with great interest.”
The good news for Jon Jones fans is that the injury should improve his overall health. What seems pretty clear is that Jones and his management team is taking things quite carefully. Everything moved so quickly for him to end up as the light heavyweight champion; he beat Ryan Bader and then was offered a shot at Shogun Rua in the ring following the win. Though he did not have much time in between fights, he still won. Now that Jones has the light heavyweight title his team has decided to slow things down to make sure he’s able to retain the title for quite some time. If that’s truly why they’re doing it, it’s a wise move.
As for the rest of the UFC 133 card, it still is pretty good. Little Nog and Rich Franklin will meet, Vitor Belfort faces Yoshihiro Akiyama, and our buddy Jorge Rivera is also on the card.
