Jones back on the mats, and cleaning them
Igor Araujo: “They always pick someone to clean the mat after the training, and he didn’t complain he had to do it. He’s a nice guy, and I look up to him inside the gym.”
Former UFC light heavyweight Jon Jones was of course stripped of his title following his arrest for leaving an accident involving personal injury. He has since returned to training at Jackson-Winklejohn MMA in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and his training partner UFC welterweight Igor Araujo, says he wasn’t just on the mats, he was cleaning them.
“On the first day Jones returned to the gym, they put him to clean the mat when the training session was over,” said Araujo to Mark Bergman for MMAFighting.com. “They always pick someone to clean the mat after the training, and he didn’t complain he had to do it. He’s a nice guy, and I look up to him inside the gym. … He trains every day. He’s always joking around and laughing. I spoke with him the other day and he’s cool, being positive. The coach tells us what to do and he trains normally, every single day. He’s in shape, too.”
“Nobody talks about it. I think he will get out of this situation. I don’t know what the justice is going to decide for his future, but he’s a champion. … Those in the UFC know that he’s the champion, and he will get that belt back. The champion is the best. Rafael dos Anjos won the title because he defeated everybody. Weidman did the same thing. Jon Jones lost the title to himself. I told him that already. ‘The only man that can beat you is yourself.’ We lose to ourselves all the time.”
There have been mixed reports about whether Jones is likely to return to the page, but the most important thing is as coach Winklejohn said recently, that he is working on becoming a better person.