Jon Jones Calls Missing the UFC White House Card His Biggest Regret

Jon Jones has a short list of career regrets, and he just added one to the top of it: not fighting on the UFC White House card. The man most people consider the greatest light heavyweight in history — and the reigning heavyweight champ after stopping Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 on Nov. 16, 2024 — told The Schmo that missing that event is one of the biggest regrets of his life.

Jones retired after the Miocic win, then un-retired to chase a White House spot, campaigning for it almost from the moment the card was announced. It didn't work. The promotion passed him over, and the co-main event instead went to an interim heavyweight title bout between Ciryl Gane and Alex Pereira. Jones now says that night in the cage against Miocic was probably his last, and he doesn't expect to compete again.

The way Jones framed it, UFC 309 was close to a perfect sendoff. He said his brother was still alive at the time, his father was in attendance, and he got to beat a man widely regarded as the best heavyweight ever. For a fighter who claims he rarely second-guesses himself, the White House snub clearly stings — he said it was one of the few nights where he kept thinking he should have been there.

What He Walked Away From

Pereira is the name that filled the vacancy, and he's had a rocky stretch since. The Brazilian sits at #3 in the UFC light heavyweight rankings with a 13-4 record (11 KO), and he's coming off a second-round KO loss to Gane. He's booked next against Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 335. That's the kind of marquee crossover Jones wanted a piece of and didn't get.

Jones also reportedly tried to patch things up with the UFC after burning them with his abrupt retirement — one that scuttled a long-demanded unification fight with interim champ Tom Aspinall. The apology, like the campaigning, landed nowhere. The ship sailed, and Jones knows it.

Still, he's not painting himself as a tragic figure. Jones said that even if he never fights again, he's pretty damn happy with how it ended — a title defense over a legend, with family present, on his own terms. The White House card is the one box he'll never tick. Everything else, by his own accounting, he got.