Jon Jones is reportedly holding out and negotiating with the UFC for more money, and it is frustrating his opponent in Alexander Gustafsson.
Late last month, Dana White went on record to state that he’s working on putting on a rematch between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 232. A few days later, the Swede has aired his frustrations on social media, saying that he’s signed his bout agreement and is still waiting on Jones’.
“@jonnybones, you are pissing me off! I signed my agreement,” Gustafsson wrote on Instagram. “Where are you?? Are you chickening out again?? Stop being a coward! #chicken #signthecontract #scared”
The reason for the hold up appears to be a contractual dispute. According to Amy Kaplan, “negotiations have stalled” and Jones is reportedly “holding out” for a cut of the pay-per-view buys that wasn’t offered on this current contract.
Jones had this on his previous deals, which ended up with him earning substantially higher than what’s reported through the athletic commissions.
According to industry sources, Jones’s agreement with the UFC usually included PPV bonuses and even bigger side agreements. On his previous title defenses against Cormier and Gustafsson, for example, his guaranteed payouts (reported and side agreements) were at least $2 million, while his PPV bonuses were over a million dollars each. This would make his total payouts for those bouts between $3 million to $4 million.
If parts of this deal aren’t included on his latest UFC offer, it would involve a significant amount of money that Jones would understandably try to negotiate for.