Editor’s Note: Enchantment Sports’ Sebastian Noel and photo journalist Dana Childs spent Monday night in the thick of Albuquerque’s George Floyd protests. Noel then documented the heroic actions of world champion MMA fighter Jon “Bones” Jones, who was there to protect his city against another possible riot, and interviewed Jones about his actions.
By Sebastian Noel
For Enchantment Sports
Every city needs a Clark Kent.
Mixed Martial Arts fighter Jon Jones, and his team from Jackson Wink, were just the heroes this city needed Monday evening.
Bracing for another night of peaceful protest, potentially followed by rioting downtown, it appears Jones and his team, which includes former Duke City Gladiator Fatu Ulale, were determined the latter didn’t happen again.
A Black Lives Matter protest, which started in front of the University of New Mexico Bookstore, moved west down Central Boulevard, begging the question: would this end up Downtown?
Would there be more rioting and destruction, as there was on Sunday night/Monday morning in the Duke City?
Jones and team wanted to be prepared.
They spent much of the day Downtown, helping businesses board up their windows in preparation of another night of chaos.
As Monday night’s procession moved west, my ProView Networks colleague, Dana Childs, and I raced Downtown, to await the march.
It never came.
As we stood alone on Central and 1st Street, waiting for them to arrive, I logged onto a live stream of the procession and it quickly became clear that legitimate protesters and hooligans were again at odds.
The live comments all read “Jon Jones for Mayor” or “It’s Officer Jones now.”
We could see on the stream, that Jones and his team — along with Black Lives Matter organizers — were clearly instructing rioters that on this night. Downtown was off limits.
We hopped back in my truck and headed back east on Central.
We were briefly stopped, so again I logged on a livestream and saw Jones and his team very forcefully demanding that the night would remain a night of protest — not rioting.
After a tense exchange, it appeared the cowards who would choose to riot under the disguise of darkness and a mask, would not dare cross Jones and his team.
Law and order seemed to triumph over riot and chaos.
We caught up with Jones and his team as they were heading east on Central at Buena Vista. The job was seemingly done.
The headline: “Jon ‘Bones’ Jones saves his city.
But it wasn’t over.
As we were catching up with him to have a word, a black Nissan Altima veered towards us.
A single gunshot was fired out of the vehicle and into the air (see video below).
Jones and his team remained calm.
They collected as much information on the car as possible and called authorities to report the vehicle.
We caught up with Jones moments later as they approached Girard Blvd. As you can see in the video below, Jones was very proud of his team and his city.
Enchantment Sports and all of Albuquerque are very proud of Jones and Jackson Wink.
Thank you from an entire city.
Sebastian Noel is a play-by-play announcer for ProView Networks and host of “Local Focus w/ Sebastian Noel,” airing weeknights at 10 p.m., on ProView.
Noel, also serves as the on-field reporter during the My50TV game of the week during the football season and is a frequent contributor to Enchantment Sports.
At right: Noel interviews Jones during a New Mexico Gladiators’ game on ProView last year.
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