It would appear that Jon Jones almost dodged a catastrophe before his fight with Ciryl Gane at the last UFC 285 event.
An official from the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) called Jones’ attention to the tape that was wrapped around his foot as he was entering the Octagon. According to the official, ‘Bones’ should not have had his big toe and second toe tapped together. Following a brief conversation, one of Jones’ cornermen chopped off some of it, leaving his big toe tapped.
That was enough for the official to let Jones continue, but the former UFC light heavyweight champion wasn’t too satisfied to have to deal with that distraction before his much-anticipated return.
During his post-fight press conference, Jones stated: “I used a different tape. “I usually use a certain brand of tape. I’ll give them a shoutout, War Tape. I feel like it’s just a lot stickier. I used the UFC’s tape tonight and as soon as my body started to sweat, the tape was sliding all over the place.
“So, I made almost like a little cast around my toe that linked down to the middle of my foot so that the tape wouldn’t slide off my toes,” continued Jones. “And when I got out there, the commission was just like, ‘You can’t tape your feet.’ And I’m like, ‘Dude, I’ve always taped my feet’.”
In spite of the interruption, Jones went on to dominate Gane, who eventually submitted to a guillotine choke applied by Jones in the first round of the match. Yet he did have a problem with his toe tape, despite the fact that he had no problems with ‘Bon Gamin.’
While he had Gane pressed up against the cage, the tape that had been wrapped to Jones’ toe started peeling off. It was a worrying time for Jones, who had consistently bandaged his toe ever since he broke it in his battle against Chael Sonnen at UFC 159 almost a decade ago. The 35-year-old fighter expressed his desire that he would not have to deal with this tape problem again, stating that if he does not have it on his foot, he will not enter the Octagon.
“I’m not going to compete if I can’t tape my toes,” said Jones. “I just won’t do it. I want everyone to know that for the future, so thank God we didn’t have a disaster out there tonight. But they ended up changing the tone a little bit. They allowed me to keep my toes taped and they made me take the rest of the tape off the rest of my foot. It was a nice little distraction going into the fight.”