It took President Donald Trump‘s announcement of a UFC event at the White House that brought Jon Jones back from retirement. The former 2-weight champion even claimed to have entered the testing pool, as he eyes a comeback against whoever holds the belt by the time UFC White’s House takes place. But it seems like Dana White isn’t very keen on adding Jones to that card.

Jon Jones previously delayed the fight against Tom Aspinall for months, as Dana White was fixated on making this fight happen. However, his unceremonious retirement announcement left a lot of fans, including the UFC CEO, disappointed. And now, White doesn’t want to take any risks with Jones ever again, especially since there is an event of huge magnitude on the horizon.

As such, the whole White House event could see Jon Jones excluded from it since the UFC CEO does not want to put the event in jeopardy, as he plans to make this event the biggest one ever. “You know how I felt about him. I just can’t risk putting him in big positions, in a big spot, and have something go wrong, especially the White House card,” Dana White told the media at the UFC 318 post-fight press conference.

It’s not surprising that Dana White is skeptical about including Jones in such a marquee event. After all, the former 2-weight UFC champion surprised even White himself with the announcement of his retirement, with the UFC head honcho claiming that ‘Bones’ had agreed to fight Tom Aspinall.

One also shouldn’t forget that Jon Jones refused to entertain Tom Aspinall for a fight despite the latter being a then-interim champion who had defended the interim belt once. Add to that, and Aspinall found himself as the unwilling record-holder for the longest reigning interim champion, going over 550 days. In the process, the heavyweight division experienced stagnation with many touting it as the “most boring division in the UFC.”

Cut to the present day, and Dana White appears to be occupied with something else. Given that the White House event is going to happen next year, there is still a lot of time to finalize the card, as the 55-year-old claims the UFC landscape will be different in a year’s time. So, the focus now is on getting the setup in order. Here’s what White had to say.

Dana White is discussing the logistics for the White House event

The UFC team seems to be undecided not only on the card for the White House but also on what they might need to set up the UFC White House event on the South Lawn. Dana White had previously mentioned that on one side, there would be the UFC stage, and on the other, the Washington Monument. But the finalization is yet to be done, and the UFC CEO claims that he’s also considering hearing what Donald Trump has in mind for the event as well.

“I have other problems. I’m dealing with the logistics and all the things on figuring out how to make this thing happen, how do we wanna do it,” the UFC CEO added. “I’m gonna fly out there in about 10 days, two weeks, and we’ll have all the renderings down, sit down with him… and see what he wants to do and what he doesn’t want to do.”

Well, Jon Jones may not have expected this to happen, but Dana White could change his mind in the coming months. After all, the CEO has always spoken highly of ‘Bones’ and has always hailed him as the greatest to ever do it. Nevertheless, what do you make of the head honcho’s snubbing of the consensus MMA GOAT? Drop your comments below.