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Jon Jones, former UFC light heavyweight champion—to some still the righteous holder of the title—has no court date set on which his future will be determined before the law. After crashing with another vehicle last month, Jon Jones fled the scene of the crime in a hit-and-run situation, leaving behind a pregnant woman with injuries that landed her in the hospital. Following the fiasco, the promotion that for so many years cherished him as their most iconic champion, stripped Jones of his coveted title and suspended him indefinitely, while Reebok annulled the deal they’d struck with him earlier this year.

While no timeline is in place for a return from the former pound-for-pound king, his manager Malki Kawa said recently that he wouldn’t be shocked if Jones never came back. It’s a sad prospect to envision a future without Bones, because despite his incredibly divisive persona he is by far one of the most entertaining athletes to watch in the world. A UFC without Jones is a lessened UFC and there’s no other way of looking at it, it’s just a shame he’s become tangled up with poor decision-making.

Carlos Condit, friend to Jones and teammate at Jackson-Winklejohn’s in Albuquerque, New Mexico, appeared on a recent episode of Ariel Helwani’s MMA Hour, where he told Helwani that he’s seen Jones around the gym and that he is training.



"Jon's been around the gym a little bit, which is good. I like to see him down there,” Condit said. “It's a crazy situation that he's going to have to deal with. I think having him in the gym doing what he does best, training and trying to keep that side of his life going, is a good thing. I Talked to him briefly, but not about incident but about situation. He said, I'll be back, I'm going to be back. I believe him, there's no doubt. I think there's a good chance. In his mind he's fighting again."

While it would make a lot of sense for the UFC to do what they can to bring their champion back to the promotion, it also would make sense if they didn’t. Jones has been caught up in a series of occasions that have earned him the status of party-boy, immature, and unprofessional. However, once more, he is Jon Jones, and he didn’t get to where he is by being a fool.

Jones just needs to reassess and refocus his energy. After all, that’s why he moved to New Mexico in the first place following the cocaine drama surrounding his UFC 182 fight versus Daniel Cormier. Cormier has benefited the most from Jones’ slips: first he becomes the bigger man when Jones catches heat for testing positive for cocaine, then he gets another title shot because Jones’ got stripped of it.

Earlier this year, talk was of Carlos Condit returning to the Octagon for this upcoming weekend’s UFC 187. Instead, he fights the following weekend versus former contender and revitalized welterweight Thiago Alves, in Goiania, Brazil. He last fought in March of 2014, when a torn ACL granted a TKO win to Tyron Woodley.

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