Jones on JRE: Why I have to fight

Former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is probably the greatest fighter ever in the Octagon. And we will probably never know that definitively because he has not been a champion in life. Many fans have said that he could yet turn his life around. But Cus D’Amato said, “People who are born round don’t die square.”

Jones is currently suspended for 18 months after taking an unprescribed, generic, contaminated erectile dysfunction pill. Call that his crisis of 2016. His crisis of 2015 was running his rental into a vehicle operated by a pregnant woman, breaking her arm. He then ran from the scene, only to return, stuff cash into his pockets, and flee again, leaving behind a marijuana pipe and marijuana, among other items. Jones turned himself in late the next day. And these were just two in a long series of unfortunate incidents.

Jon Jones is not a Jake LaMotta or Roberto Duran. If a LaMotta, a Duran, or someone cut from that cloth got in a car accident, you’d say it was Thursday. But Jones is by many, many accounts a decent, caring, friendly, fun person, which only makes the endless incidents more inexplicable. Are they lapses, or are they him? Coupled with his extraordinary ability and work ethic, it makes for a profoundly frustrating fan experience. You want to believe in Jon Jones, but you can’t.

The fighter appeared recently on The Joe Rogan Experience, with a publicist by his side, and was insightful, introspective, honest, frank, and fun. Rogan is the best conversationalist in America, and too is insightful, introspective, honest, frank, and fun. It’s a great, great interview.

After winning the belt that had been stripped from Jones, Daniel Cormier famously pleaded “Jon Jones … get your s*** together.”

Jones obviously didn’t or couldn’t, and he does not hide from that.

Everyone feels like they have the right to tell me to get my s*** together,” he told Rogan, adding, “they’re right.

Jones, a father of four girls, began by saying that he believes God will not bless him with a son until he is ready to teach a boy how to be a man.

“I know about some demons that I still struggle with,” said Jones to Rogan, as transcribed by Elias Cepeda for Champions.co. “I feel as if when I’m over those, I’ll feel ready to raise a man – teach a man how to be a proper man.”

One demon he is apparently past is getting blackout drunk one week before every fight.

I had this crazy thing I would do where I would party one week before my fight,” said Jones. “It was something I did throughout my whole career.”

It was stupid but it was this mental crutch I had…One week before every fight I would go and get blacked-out wasted. My logic was that if this guy were to beat me, somehow, I could look in the mirror and say that I lost because I’d gotten hammered the week before the fight…It was a safety net.”

The Ovince St-Preux fight was the first fight I didn’t do that and it was my worst performance.

His story is hardly all gloom however. Jones said he is committed to focusing on his children and on his personal life, and will fight again in the UFC in July on 2017.

“I feel better today than I did when I was beating everyone’s ass,” he said. “Not worrying about social media has brought a lot of peace to me.”

Jones has a grappling match with Dan Henderson at Chael Sonnen’s Submission Underground II on December 11 in Portland, Oregon. The event streams live on FloGrappling.

And Jones is secure financially. He made many millions, and unlike so many athletes with big incomes, Jones lives modestly. He doesn’t need to fight to make a living, he wants to.

I have to fight because the story can’t end like this,” he said.