UFC
Mike Tyson comments on UFC Champ Jon Jones in wake of DUI arrest
May 25, 2012 - 3:35:39 PM Mike Tyson comments on UFC Champ Jon Jones in wake of DUI arrest

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones is at a bit of a crossroads in his career. As the youngest Champion in UFC history, with no signs of slowing down, he's at the top of the sport from an in-cage standpoint. However, his arrest on suspicion of DUI last weekend is evidence of trouble brewing outside of the cage, and as UFC President Dana White commented this week he's got a couple of paths he can take.

Does he grow from the incident, or does he continue down a path of self-destruction in a high profile role? There's one major example to show the less desirable path, and that man is Mike Tyson. A phenom when he broke onto the boxing scene, Tyson's world devolved with his own well-documented path of self-destruction. His life experience makes him a uniquely qualified individual to comment on what Jones is going through right now, and he did just that in an interview with Paul Heyman for "The Heyman Hustle," posted on Friday.

"It depends on Jon basically, what Jon wants to do. Where Jon wants to go," Tyson commented on how Jones responds to the scrutiny of Saturday morning's arrest. "Number one in incidents like this it turns into support system. A guy like me when I was living my life, I had millions of dollars, I didn't have a support system; I had a bad support system so I got bad support. So in an incident like this, we don't know; no one really knows Jon Jones, we just know he's a splendid fighter, we've never seen a UFC fighter like that."

"I just wish the best happens out of this situation, because just like so many people love him, there are people out there in a position to put him in a bad place," Tyson continued. "We're going to find out from this situation if Jon Jones is going to continue to make us love him as a great fighter and carries himself as a great individual, a humanitarian. Or if he's going to let the bright lights and dark shadows invade his life, and be one of those rising meteors that we saw that just flies through the air and lights the world up, but then dies down in the moment."

"I hope not, because we all respect Jon, and Jon appears to be a very nice guy, a respectable guy. I just hope the best for him, because I've been through those situations before... Take care, Champ."

Penick's Analysis: The continued sentiment here is that Jones has a couple of paths he could go down in response to the arrest. If he takes one path, this is an incident that won't ever be repeated, and he'll change some things in his life outside of the cage to make sure it doesn't ever happen again. If he goes down the other, he'll continue to live his life as if he's untouchable, and this will not be an isolated incident. Everyone is hoping he goes down the former path, but that's something that will be up to him to do. Tyson's comments are interesting because he knows what it means to go down the wrong path. Hopefully that's not the path Jones takes, but we'll need to see that from him going forward.

[Jon Jones art by Grant Gould (c) MMATorch.com]