Jon Jones Now Public Enemy No. 1 for Many UFC Fighters

Jon Jones just made himself a bunch of enemies.

Nobody he will have to fight, granted.

Nonetheless, there were 22 fighters scheduled to earn their paycheck at UFC 151. Now, with the event canceled due to an injury to Dan Henderson and an awkward triangle of Jon Jones, Chael Sonnen and Lyoto Machida just not netting a feasible main event in time, Jon Jones has been labeled as the one responsible for this terrible turn of events.

Is it fair? No.

Most of the blame, logically, should rest with UFC matchmaker Joe Silva. There have been plenty of championship bouts getting scrapped in the last two years, and it is not the first time a main event has been lost days before the event.

Think back, for example, to UFC 106. A highly anticipated heavyweight title fight between Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin, which almost certainly would have resulted in well over one million buys, was yanked off the card. From there, what was originally scheduled to be the co-main event, a rematch between Tito Ortiz and Forrest Griffin, became the main event and netted a solid 375,000 buys.

UFC 151 had a very weak lineup of fights behind it. The co-main event was to be a welterweight bout between Jake Ellenberger and Jay Hieron, a fight with minimal title implications in a division locked down until Carlos Condit fights Georges St-Pierre (and GSP fights Anderson Silva). No fights past that were relevant to the top of the division.

That said, Jon Jones could have fought Chael Sonnen in the title bout. UFC President Dana White said he already had the promotions marketing department scrambling to put advertisements together.

But alas, Jon Jones' coach (and manager, in many ways), Greg Jackson advised him against such a matchup, saying Chael Sonnen is not the sort of fighter to take on eight days' notice. This is reasonable, for sure. Dan Henderson and Chael Sonnen, though both wrestlers, would be approached very differently.

Even so, Dennis Siver, Thiago Tavares, Shane Roller, Danny Castillo, Takeya Mizugaki and the rest of the twenty fighters who will not have their chance to fight at UFC 151 do not care, and they should not. They will not be getting a paycheck regardless. Their blame, as does Dana White's, lies with Jon Jones.

UFC brass is most certainly displeased. They are not getting back the money they paid to Fox for commercials. They also now have twenty fighters, healthy and ready to fight, that now have nowhere to do it. Fans will likely also come out swinging when it comes to Jones, whose popularity has actually been steadily declining since he annihilated Mauricio Rua to become the light heavyweight champion.

And with that, right or wrong, another hard hit has been blown to the Jon Jones brand.

Jones, who branded and conducted himself as a role model and family man, is thought of very differently now, even compared to just a year ago.

Now, he is the fighter that refuses to sign autographs for fans. Now, he is the fighter who drives drunk. Now, he is the man who keeps getting caught with women other than the mother of his daughter.

Now, according to many fans, he is the first man to completely wreck a UFC event.