No. That's the answer to the question everyone's been chewing on since Monday, and nothing in the last day of this story moves it an inch.
On October 19, Jake Paul went on X and floated the idea after Shakur Stevenson walked away from Zuffa Boxing just three months into his deal. "Can Jon Jones request a release like Shakur Stevenson so we can go ahead and do this Francis Ngannou vs Jon Jones fight?" Paul wrote, before adding, "They already said they are never working with Francis. So let Jon fly and we can give the fans what they want. Please and thank you."
Please and thank you. That's the lever Paul thinks moves a company that has spent years making sure its biggest names don't end up fighting for somebody else. The UFC and Dana White haven't said a word publicly, and they don't need to. The silence is the answer.
Start with the obvious. Jones signed an eight-fight deal with the UFC ahead of his heavyweight title fight at UFC 285 in March 2023. He's confirmed it himself. That contract is the entire reason he isn't already free to do whatever he likes, and no promotion hands a marquee name to a rival who'll build a show around embarrassing them. The UFC released Ngannou once, watched him go box and build his own brand elsewhere, and has made clear it wants nothing more to do with him. Why would it repeat that with Jones, for free, as a favor to Jake Paul?
Then there's the part Paul is skating past: the idea that cutting Jones loose would finally deliver this fight assumes Jones wants to fight at all. Look at the trail. He kept the heavyweight division frozen for over a year rather than face Tom Aspinall, the interim champion at the time. The UFC reportedly put $30 million on the table for that fight. Jones turned it down and said so out loud: "Most fighters wouldn't turn down $30 million. They just wouldn't do that. My goals are different than other people's these days." Aspinall confirmed the number from his side and asked the question nobody could answer: why wasn't it offered again?
This is a man who, at UFC 309 fight week in November 2024, floated "random fights like Jamahal Hill" instead of agreeing to unify the belt. A man who retired in June 2025, un-retired when he wanted a spot on the White House card, didn't get on it, and asked for his release then. That request went nowhere publicly. Paul is now running the same play through his own Twitter account.
So picture the version where it all works. The UFC, out of pure generosity, tears up a contract on one of its best-known fighters. Then Jones, who turned down eight figures to fight the champion in his own division, suddenly signs up to get punched by Ngannou for Jake Paul's show. The second half of that sentence is as hard to believe as the first.
Jones leaving the UFC would at least give the heavyweight picture some closure and let him chase the fights he keeps saying he wants. On paper, everybody could win. The problem is that the paper doesn't match the people on it. The UFC has no incentive, Jones has a documented habit of not showing up for the hard ones, and the whole plan hangs on Paul's promotion having the money to fund a spectacle this size. Three ifs, and all three have to break the long-shot way at once.
One person in this story told the truth, and it was Ngannou. When Paul tagged him in, he replied, "Freedom isn't free; it's not given, but it's taken." He knows. He lived it, left on his own terms after a fight the UFC didn't want to lose. Nobody handed it to him because he asked nicely on social media.
Jake Paul is a good promoter and a better troll. He's turning a business dead end into a story about fans being denied their dream fight. The fans aren't being denied anything. The UFC is holding a contract it has no reason to tear up, on a fighter who's spent years finding reasons not to compete. Please and thank you doesn't change a single piece of that.
