Jones: I never asked to be called the future
“I try to learn even more to be myself even more and just continue to play the game and be…
“I try to learn even more to be myself even more and just continue to play the game and be my team’s little brother.”
And therein lies perhaps the scariest fact about Jones: He’s still learning, both in and out of the cage. He has yet to show many flaws in the octagon, and his rare blend of size, speed and creativity have left many to proclaim Jones as the sport’s “next big thing.”
Of course others have called him rubbish, especially during his trying stretch as champ. Bring it on, said Jones.
“I never asked to be called the future,” Jones said. “I never asked to be called this and that. Everybody else is putting all these tags on me. I’m just being me. The people that find me cocky now or arrogant or say this or that, I’m actually grateful for the negativity in my career.
“I’m starting to realize that everything goes away. There’s nothing that you should lose sleep over. No matter how bad it may seem while it’s happening, it all goes away. This whole ‘Spygate’ issue – the day it happened, it was annoying. Now it’s just like, ‘Oh, whatever.’ The hand issue – everybody was like, ‘Oh, you’re ducking fights.’ Now I haven’t heard that in a long time. So it all goes away. That’s the way it works.
“I’m just fighting. Ultimately, I’m here to fight.”