At UFC 197 former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones fought Ovince Saint Preux. He also fought 15 months of cage rust, a recent arrest, and as he revealed at the recent UFC 200 press conference, a terrible family misfortune.
Jones’ mother Camille suffers from diabetes. He reportedly lost the majority of her vision from the disease, but this was worse still.
“In my last fight, I had a lot of stuff stacked up against me,” said Jones, as transcribed by Shaun Al-Shatti for MMA Fighting. “A lot of you guys don’t really realize what’s been going on in my personal life. My mom is in a real bad position. She’s really losing a fight to diabetes right now. She got her leg cut off the same week of my fight, so that really messed with me a lot.
“I was in jail the same month of my fight. Just going through a lot of stuff, man. I hadn’t fought in over 15 months, and everybody is talking about my performance being so bad. I got punched twice. I won by unanimous decision. So if that’s a bad performance with the level that people expect from me, it’s really not a bad problem to have. I went out there and I didn’t feel comfortable in the Octagon and I still absolutely dominated that fight.”
“After the fight, I sat there in the Octagon and I was so critical of my performance. Then I went home and watched it and I realized, really, the guy punched twice in 25 minutes. That was it. He never landed anything. He never hurt me. Two punches in 25 minutes and I’m sitting here… I have such a high expectation of myself, I’m beating myself over a fight where I clearly dominated the fight. So, I feel really good about the fight.
“Some fights, you want to be really, really impressive and you really want to do these awesome moves for the fans. But that fight was a smart fight. I fought really smart. Really smart. And now I’m here today with no injuries getting ready to turn around and fight for you guys at UFC 200, so that was a win in every way.
“There’s different levels to being a high-level fighter. Sometimes it’s the mature move. The fans were booing in the arena wanting to see a knockout, but I did the mature move. I fought real smooth, especially with 15 months off. I got punched only twice. So I think that was an extraordinary performance when I look back on it, and you guys will see a real can of whoop-ass when I do what I was planning on doing against DC.”
“I believe that everything happens for a reason. I got that ring rust off of me, and I got right back to the strategy of the gameplan that I originally had. I believe I’m going to annihilate DC. So far it’s all I’ve ever done, to pretty much every opponent. Alexander Gustafsson is the only person who had a competitive fight with me, so when I sit here and tell you I’m going to annihilate DC, the people who don’t believe me, just wait and see.”
UFC interim light heavyweight champion Jon Jones fights champion Daniel Cormier at UFC 200 on July 9 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
