Jones’ coach: Anderson Silva doesn’t want to fight Jon
On Mauro Ranallo’s The MMA Show yesterday, Jon Jones’ trainer Mike Winklejohn weoghed in on his, and the entire sports’ star…
On Mauro Ranallo’s The MMA Show yesterday, Jon Jones’ trainer Mike Winklejohn weoghed in on his, and the entire sports’ star pupil.
Mauro Ranallo: Do you give (John Jones) freedom to become creative and adlib inside the Octagon? How much did we see of that on Saturday (against Rampage), if so?
Mike Winkeljohn: Oh, quite a bit, you know what, we let him ad-lib within certain parameters. The game plan was definitely break Quinton down, let’s break his legs down, let’s break his body down, let’s slow him down and stay away from his big bombs and then anything you want to do, Jon, you’re going to be capable. You’ll be able to shoot in and take him down after you’ve broken him down and it played out that way, so I’m real happy with what he did. We made some mistakes and Jon hurt his foot with an inside leg kick. Jon doesn’t that experience, yet, from fighting. If you think about his time standing up in the cage, we’re talking a few rounds, a few minutes where he’s actually doing stand-up. He doesn’t have that kind of experience. Some of these guys have had many fights, numerous fights in kickboxing. Jon just comes from a wrestling background so all this is new, so he’s still trying to figure out all the striking out and doing really well with it.
MR: There is precision and technique, the spinning elbows, the kicks to the patella tendon. Do you see any similarities between him and Anderson Silva or does that come up at all when going through game plans with him or how do you see him as a fighter compared to others that you’ve worked with?
MW: You know what, I think with Anderson, Anderson is probably the best as far as the eyes going, watching an opponent and then knowing he can strike a certain time and put them on their ass. That’s what Anderson does and I think Jon’s getting there with his strikes. I think Jon’s much better, way past Anderson as far as wrestling skills go. With his stand-up I think Jon brings many more strikes to the table than Anderson has, a lot more variety. We’re just not there on a knockout type of shot, we’re going to get there pretty soon. We hurt Rampage many times during that fight with strikes, but we’re going to get there. We’re going to get those things fine-tuned. It’s just going to take just a little bit longer and we’ve only just begun. The future is definitely bright for Jon.
MR: What do you think about his learning curve right now? Where do you think he is?
MW: Oh, I think he’s there. You know what, down the road there’s no doubt he’s going to get some weight on and go to Heavyweight but he’s got a lot to do at Light Heavyweight. I don’t think Anderson would probably want that fight with Jon Jones. I think, you know, Anderson would use his length and pick his shot against people. With Jon coming in at so many different angles from a long range, I definitely don’t think that’s a good fight for Anderson. I think we’re here to stay in the Light Heavyweight division for a while and build a legend, something that hasn’t been done in a little bit of a while. The Light Heavyweight division has had a lot of turnover.
With much fan speculation growing about whether Anderson Silva should face Jon Jones given that it seems a GSP/Anderson fight is unlikely to happen, Rashad Evans seems to be off to the side. Yes, he’ll be fighting Jones next but it’s an uncomfortable kind of situation. You have hardcores who think UFC is scripting and manipulating the way it’s being presented, you have fans wondering if there is a real feud at all, and then you have the casual fans who largely think Bones is going to wreck Rashad. Not just beat him, but humiliate him in that 7-to-1 kind of favorite way.
MR: What happened, from your perspective? Why did it turn out all the way it did and do you feel it’s nothing more than maybe a misunderstanding at the end? Maybe even after the fight, win or lose, do you think Jones and Evans will ever patch things up or will the antipathy will continue to grow as we near the title fight afterwards?
MW: They came to camp, I wouldn’t say that they were the greatest friends, they just trained together a little bit. It’s just one of those things. It sucks for Rashad in that he was going to fight the title, he didn’t get the chance, and Jon took it so I’m sure there’s some sour grapes there and I don’t blame him. At the end of the day, everyone wants to be champion, teammate or not. That’s what everybody wants to do. I don’t blame him in the slightest. I’d want to fight for the title, everybody does. You have two great fighters trying as hard as they can to beat the crap out of each other, find out who’s the best, and then afterwards I think the respect will come and they’ll go forward hopefully with a lot of money in their pocket and even more fans.