Jon Jones serves up some Christmas coal to Dan Hooker: ‘Your career is simply not panning out’

They say Christmas is the season of giving, and former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones took a break from celebrating to gift Dan Hooker some coal.

Jones on Saturday responded to a diss from Hooker, firing back at the New Zealand UFC vet for referring to his recent domestic battery case.

“Bro your career is simply not panning out, that’s my response. Lol,” Jones wrote before deleting the tweet.

“Every opportunity you’ve had to make a name for yourself and be closer to your boy Izzy, you dropped the ball,” he wrote in a later tweet. “You can’t achieve greatness, so you hop online and attack someone who has. Sounds about right.”

On Wednesday, Hooker took a swipe at Jones with a joke about the ex-champ’s longtime rival, Chael Sonnen, who recently had his own dustup in Las Vegas that led to misdemeanor battery charges for allegedly assaulting five separate victims. Several MMA industry vets have said Sonnen told them the incident happened when his wife was insulted.

“Imagine beating up 5 people and not one of them is your wife,” Hooker wrote.

Hooker is the longtime teammate of UFC middleweight champ Israel Adesanya, another Jones rival who’s frequently engaged with “Bones” online and in interviews.

Hooker is two months removed from a submission loss to lightweight contender Islam Makhachev, which he took on short notice after ex-lightweight champ Rafael dos Anjos withdrew from the bout. It was Hooker’s second fight in two months after a decision win over Nasrat Haqparast that snapped a two-fight skid.

Jones, meanwhile, remains on the shelf as he readies for his heavyweight debut in the octagon. He vacated the light heavyweight title this past year amid a contract dispute with the UFC over a potential superfight with heavyweight champ Francis Ngannou. Jones previously targeted a return in the second quarter of 2022 before his most recent legal troubles.

Update: Hooker fired back on Twitter.