UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones has poured more poisonous scorn on former octagon victim Anthony Smith after warning him that a violent break-in at his home last week would have been even worse had he been the intruder.
Callously reigniting the pair’s toxic war of words, Jones used Twitter to deride Smith over a grim ordeal at his rival’s home in Omaha, when an intruder broke in through a garage door in the middle of the night and woke the American’s wife before engaging Smith in what he described as “one of the toughest fights I’ve ever had in my life.”
Smith escaped unscathed after police eventually ended the violent struggle, only for Jones, who beat Smith by unanimous decision at UFC 235 in Las Vegas in March, to claim that there was “no way” the robber “would have left my house walking.”
After an audibly disgusted Smith called him a “f*cking douchebag” on talkshow SiriusXM Fight Nation, Jones repeated his trick of issuing and quickly deleting contentious tweets on Friday, offering specific advice to Smith about how to deal with a break-in and accusing him of “leaving your garage door open all night”.
Telling the public to “get your screenshots” before swiftly taking down the tweet, Jones said Smith should have bought his family “a gun, some mace or something”, chiding: “A douchebag more like me could’ve completely had his way with you all night. That could’ve been bad for everyone.”
Jones, who relishes removing tasteless tweets after outraging their intended recipients and the public with crude content, duly took down his posts in a repeat of the tactic with which he mocked middleweight Israel Adesanya for receiving oxygen in the ring earlier this month.
“2020 message sending,” added Jones, calling the deletion “my favorite part”. “Leave something up for five minutes and let social media do the work for you.”
Smith pulled no punches in describing his reaction to Jones’s first provocation. “You know, for a second, I thought I was going to have to respond and say, ‘Hey, thanks man, I appreciate it,’” he said, referring to Jones’s initial suggestion that he had considered his wellbeing.
“Just for a second I thought you were human and you have a soul, and then I realise you’re the same piece of sh*t that you’ve always been.
“What a perfect moment to flex, Jon, in the middle of a disaster like that in my home. What a perfect opportunity to flex, how goddamn cool you are.
“Just when you thought, ‘That’s pretty admirable of Jon Jones to reach out to well-wish me.’ Then as you continue reading you’re like, ‘Oh that’s right, I forgot you’re still a douchebag’. It’s just his opportunity to insert himself and make sure everyone knows how cool and badass he is.
“I don’t get what he’s getting at. It’s really easy to sit there and go, ‘If that guy came to my house I would have just beat the sh*t out of him, I would have done this, I would have shot him.’
“It’s really easy to say that until you’re caught in it and you’ve been awake for eight seconds and you’re in the middle of a goddamn pandemonium throw down in the middle of your living room with no pants on. Nobody’s ready for that sh*t.
“It’s really easy to flex on Twitter. We get it, Jon – we know you’re all over Twitter and Instagram with all your guns and your cool dog.”
In a rare moment of social media contrition, Jones apologized to fans and pledged to carry out “a lot of soul searching” after a notorious hit-and-run related incident in 2015 that saw him charged with a felony, stripped of his title and banned from the sport following a meeting with UFC president Dana White while he was being investigated.
He has frequently used his personal platforms to rile other fighters since then and has been involved in a string of further controversies and legal dramas, including a charge of battery for an alleged incident a month after his victory over Smith and a guilty plea for a second drink-driving offense earlier this year.
Additional charges of possession of an open container, no proof of insurance and negligent use of a deadly weapon were dropped.
Jones has more than 2.3 million followers on Twitter and received a predictably mixed response among more than 100 replies to his observation about goading the public.
“You should take a break from all social media and a break from everything else,” wrote one.
“You are going to end up in jail.”
A fellow follower asked: “Are you even still allowed to have a gun after your recent antics?”
By Saturday, Jones had turned his attention to Dominick Reyes, who he beat via a unanimous decision to retain his title in his most recent fight, at UFC 247 in Texas in February.
“Pretty sure I walked him down for 25 minutes straight when we fought,” Jones retorted to a headline suggesting that he was avoiding a “dogfight” in a potential rematch with Reyes.
Now suddenly I’m afraid of a good dogfight? Pretty sure I walked him down for 25 minutes straight when we fought. One thing about being the champion of the world, you got to search for fresh meat on every soil. I’m feeling like popping some ? in Poland, haven’t had that yet.
“One thing about being the champion of the world, you got to search for fresh meat on every soil. I’m feeling like popping some cherries in Poland. Haven’t had that yet.”
When he targeted Adesanya with a picture of the middleweight champion lying prone following his knockout loss to Alex Pereira in a kickboxing match in 2017, Jones wrote: “Wasting all that good oxygen. Someone wake this b*tch up and change his tampon.”
Speaking about the tweet-and-delete, Adesanya told ESPN: “He’s a young black man at the top of his game and he’s throwing it all away.”
