Wanting to shed its violent image has to be the dumbest excuses for anything related to MMA. MMA can't shed its violent image. It is inherently a violent blood sport. You can't hope to sanitize it if fighters come out looking like this in the end.
The UFC will not get any bigger. There is no where else to go after the Fox deal. The numbers aren't that great for the fox cards and their PPVs are declining due to saturation. They aren't making big stars anymore and fans couldn't care any less about the fire extinguisher weight classes.
For all the faults of the Japanese organizations, they at least had the right idea of making it about entrainment first. Putting on a good show is always secondary to "getting legitimacy". The people who are turned off to combat sports can never be won over. Visuals like this will never leave their minds.
You can put all the rules you want, you can get all the sponsors, but people won't get over that hump.
Finally, Jones didn't lose his Nike sponsorship because of the fight. It had zero mainstream attention and everyone in the MMA community got hyped for the fight. If Hope Solo can keep her Nike sponsorship after getting domestic violence charges, a MMA fighter can't lose it for being violent in a company sponsored event. They probably just used it as an excuse because like I said before there isn't the audience or fan base to sell a line of Nike product with a MMA fighter on it.
