If there was still any doubt, the possibility of a Jon Jones-Chuck Liddell matchup is officially on ice.
Jones and Liddell, two legends of the UFC’s light heavyweight division, have been involved in one of the stranger verbal feuds in recent memory, with Liddell previously mentioning that he would like to fight Jones someday and that “Bones” could stand to learn a lesson from him. Unsurprisingly, Jones didn’t take Liddell’s comments kindly and he questioned both Liddell’s character and his ability to still compete.
Following Liddell’s ugly loss to rival Tito Ortiz on Saturday in what was Liddell’s first fight in over eight years, Jones responded to a comment on Twitter asking if the purely hypothetical talks of a matchup with “The Iceman” were truly dead:
Yeah it’s official, I am never replying to chuck calling me out again. https://t.co/oDYJ91Aes0
— Jon Bones Jones (@JonnyBones) November 25, 2018
“Yeah, it’s official,” Jones wrote. “I am never replying to Chuck calling me out again.”
Jones also took the opportunity to call out old rival Rashad Evans, who was working as an analyst on the Liddell-Ortiz 3 broadcast. Apparently, Evans made comments questioning whether Jones (who has twice tested positive for banned substances) was a clean athlete outside of an encounter with Ovince Saint Preux in April 2016.
According to Jones, he was more physically impressive than ever in that “OSP” fight and he took a shot at Evans while dismissing the accusation:
It’s easy for him to talk shit when he knows he’ll never be in the top 10 again. His theory makes no sense, I was freaking massive for that OSP fight. Literally bigger and more ripped than I had ever been for any previous fight. Hey Rashad https://t.co/kHvQzS9lur
— Jon Bones Jones (@JonnyBones) November 25, 2018
Up next for Jones, he faces Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 232 on Dec. 29 with a UFC light heavyweight championship on the line.