Chael Sonnen is a man known for his strong opinions and for making his voice heard. He discussed the topic of Jon Jones recently on his YouTube channel.

He spoke about Jon Jones' situation and got to the topic of Jones' future in the UFC. Many have called for the release of the former champion.

“If you want Jon Jones cut, my next question is: Why?” Chael Sonnen said on his latest YouTube video (transcription via Farah Hannoun). “That answer would be obvious: to hurt him – to punish him, right? Are you sure you want him cut, then? If you want to hurt him and/or punish him, are you sure that you want him cut?

“If you release a guy, you have no control over that guy and you can attempt to guess what the market will bear. But if you still have him under contract, you will control that answer. And if you release Jon Jones with the spirit of hurting him in mind, you see where it starts to become a problem.”

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Chael Sonnen explained the reasoning behind keeping Jon Jones in the UFC and it mostly stems from the aspect of punishing him. If stays with the UFC and doesn't fight… he doesn't get paid.

“Since the night Jon fought Dominick Reyes, they haven’t handed Jon a paycheck,” Sonnen said. “Jon is unemployed. Jon is currently unlicensed. There’s steps and hoops to go through. He does not have sponsors. He’s not in the process of writing a book. He does not have an autograph signing coming up. He does not put on seminars. In all fairness, that’s a big punishment. You economically sanction somebody – for goodness sake, world powers do this to one another. It is that effective. It is that damaging. So if the idea of releasing Jon is coming from a standpoint of, ‘I want to punish him – I want to stick it to him …'”