Chael Sonnen explains what ‘stupid’ Jon Jones can learn from Max Holloway

Chael Sonnen is critical of how Jon Jones handles questions on his game.

Jones is hailed as the pound-for-pound best mixed martial arts fighter in the world, but Sonnen has been on “Bones'” case for his drawing ability. While Sonnen has ripped into Jones as he believes the UFC light heavyweight champion fails to capitalize on opportunities, Sonnen feels the complete opposite about Max Holloway.

In a new video posted on his YouTube Channel, Sonnen said Holloway embraces questions ahead of his featherweight title defenses.

“All you want as a fighter is a question,” Sonnen said. “You want the fans to constantly … as a fighter, as an athlete you wanna make sure there is no question. You wanna prove your point, you wanna shut everybody up, you wanna earn the respect. However, from a business standpoint you don’t ever want that to happen. You want there to always be questions. How will that go? How would this guy do against this opponent?”

Sonnen continued, saying that Jones should take notes from Holloway in order to boost interest in his fights.

“I’ll use Jon Jones on the counter side of this. Jon Jones does not want there to be any questions. If you question Jon Jones, you have then disrespected him. He will then be upset. Jon Jones is stupid. Jon Jones is one of the best fighters to ever fight and he doesn’t fight to sold out arenas, and he’s not gonna fight in front of a sold out arena for a meaningful period of time. He could not sell out an arena right now unless he was opposite Daniel Cormier. The reason, he’s stupid. He doesn’t understand the questions that the fans have is what makes them sit down and tune in. If they know how the movie ends, they’re not going to want to watch it as much as if they can speculate. So for Max, he’s in a very good spot business-wise because there are still questions.”

Holloway is coming off a successful title defense against Frankie Edgar and Alex Volkanovski appears to be the clear number one contender. As for Jones, he retained his light heavyweight gold via split decision against Thiago Santos. What’s next for Jon Jones isn’t quite as clear.

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 8/1/2019.