Jon Jones says he is vacating his UFC Light Heavyweight title following his back and forth with the promotion's president Dana White.
Jones and White have butted heads over his alleged demands for a superfight with Francis Ngannou, with both men branding the other a liar.
And mere days after embarking on a Twitter rant where he called for his UFC release, Jones says he will be vacating the belt he has held since October 2018.
He put forward the case for having Dominick Reyes, his last opponent who ran him close inside the Octagon, face off against Jan Błachowicz for the title as he has no interest in fighting either - only having enthusiasm for a bout with UFC Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya.
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Jones also confirmed to a fan on Twitter he intends to relinquish the strap and followed it up with a series of other tweets in which he highlighted his frustrations and stated he was done.
#ESPN Reyes vs Jan For the UFC light heavyweight championship of the world. As of right now, I got nothing to really gain fighting either of them. Let me know if you guys want to set up a day in 2021 for that Izzy fight. Hopefully you guys will be willing to pay by then.
Bones out, when you see me in the streets just call me JJ 🤙🏾
To the light heavyweight title Veni, vidi, vici
White gave his response to Jones' comments after the UFC on ESPN 9 event in Las Vegas and refused to double down on his previous claims of the champion wanting "Deontay Wilder money" to move up a weight and fight Ngannou.
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"The stuff that he's been through, to show up and basically demand $20 million, or $30 million, it's crazy," White told the press at the post show press conference.
"So he can do whatever he wants to do. He can sit out, he can fight. He can do whatever.
"You know how this works. You know how I am. Jon Jones can say whatever he wants to publicly, and when he's ready to come back and fight, he can."
White reiterated his feeling that Jones is the GOAT in MMA but feels he is being highly unreasonable and says only Jones is to blame for "tarnishing" himself.
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He added: "Being the greatest of all time doesn't mean you get $30 million. Being able to sell...Jon Jones has done a lot of things to himself. In one of his tweets, he was saying that I tarnished [him] - I tarnished you? You've done a very good job of tarnishing you.
"Hunter told him, 'You can come in here and walk through the numbers.' He says, 'I don't give a f*ck what the numbers are. I want what I want, and that's it.' That's not how life works."
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