It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that watching Jon Jones perform the famous Donald Trump dance at UFC 309 was like witnessing a cold-blooded warrior and a bombastic showman trying to lead the same waltz. But the iceberg goes much deeper than the GOAT contender grooving and handing his gold to the POTUS. Apparently, ‘Bones’ worked really hard to make sure the interaction went well!

BJJ maestro, Gordon Ryan cornered ‘Bones’ for his Madison Square Garden face-off with Stipe Miocic last November. According to Ryan, Jones, who diligently studies his opponents’ tapes before the fight, actually dedicated a significant amount of time to practicing the Trump dance.

“So good Jon Jones story that nobody knows ‘cuz I was cornering him for that fight, his last fight against Stipe. And we found out that Trump was gonna be there. And for probably a solid fifteen to twenty minutes, while he was warming up, he’s getting ready to fight for the belt. Probably twenty minutes of that warm-up was him just practicing the mechanics of how to do the Trump dance right. We like looked it up, we like YouTubed it and he was like practicing the Trump dance in the locker room getting ready to do it,” the BJJ legend told Joe Rogan on the JRE Fight Companion for UFC London.

This delighted the Jones fanboy, Joe Rogan, who laughingly asked: “How confident are you of victory where you’re already practicing your victory dance?” And although Ryan didn’t answer the rhetorical question, we all know the answer to that question.

After all, ‘Bones’ was fighting a 42-year-old clearly-over-the-hill Stipe Miocic who had been brutally flattened by Francis Ngannou three years before UFC 309. So yeah, Jones was pretty confident of victory, as was everyone else.

In the end, Jones did score an easy second round finish. Which is why the Trump dance and belt-gifting was probably the most entertaining moment ‘Bones’ did in the octagon that night. Jones, in fact, personally thanked Trump, freshly elected President and with Elon Musk and some of his cabinet in tow. “I also wanna say a big, big thank you to President Donald Trump for being here tonight,” Jones said in his post-win UFC 309 octagon interview. And maybe Jones giving that belt to Trump was a much more special moment than it seems at first glance.

Did Jon Jones give his last ever belt to Donald Trump?

Jones got a big name on his record by beating Stipe Miocic at UFC 309. But now he faces the real threat in heavyweight at the moment– interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall. The Englishman is tired of talking about a possible Jones fight, and frankly so are most UFC fans.

Things haven’t moved an inch since the night of UFC 309. Aspinall is willing and ready to go on a moment’s notice, Jon Jones is still negotiating to get ‘f–k you money’ from the UFC, while Dana White is promising everyone the fight will definitely happen. Ariel Helwani has claimed that Jones wants six months to prepare for the fight, which many see as further bad news.

Many fear that Jones may well retire if he doesn’t get the kind of money he thinks justifies risking it all against Aspinall. Maybe Jones gave away the last title he will ever win in his epoch-defining MMA career to Donald Trump at UFC 309, which makes that belt all the more special. What do you think about Gordon Ryan revealing that Jon Jones had practiced the Trump dance before UFC 309?