Former light heavyweight champion Jon Jones addressed the press at the official UFC 285 media day ahead of facing former …
John I know how excited you were when this fight got officially announced and put together I guess now that we’re just a couple days out from you getting back into the Octagon what is the feel like for you right now oh man it feels awesome I’m just so grateful to be here I’m glad to be home um the promotion is just so different than it used to be it’s just like it’s really stepped up a notch man um it’s awesome it’s just really great I’m soaking it all up I’m trying my best to just enjoy the whole process and just have as much fun with it all as I can you know you were kind of looking for like that that healthy fear like a little bit of nerves that maybe weren’t there I wondered if they were there and then I know she got up there at me today and you’re worried most about the ChapStick and how it’s looking on your face so I’m guessing maybe not too much nerves going on right now but ahead of this fight you know heavyweight in the debut like is that healthy fear back a little bit is it what like that helped that little that nerves that was kind of missing yeah yeah uh I don’t know if I don’t know if it’s fear you know um one of my favorite quotes uh you know God hasn’t given me the spirit of fear but a power love and a sound mind um so I can’t say that I’m afraid there’s some nervousness you know doing media makes you feel a little nervous you know you just want to put your best foot forward um you know seeing the fans again just being the kind of center of attention again dude I’m from Albuquerque and I live a pretty simple lifestyle you know shooting guns hanging out with my dogs you know taking care of my family it’s just like I’m just a low-key guy so this is like it’s a nice it’s a nice reality check being out here in front of everyone again and and uh I’m just doing my best with it and trying to have fun with it share share some light and love and just enjoy the process you know for all of us on the outside like our big questions are right it’s like how’s John’s body going to hold up in heavy weight you know Willie still had the Speed and the movement will you know will the strength hold up can the cardio go five rounds I mean you’ve been the one preparing and do you know the answers to all those questions or do you even you not know how it is once you get in the actual octagon I believe I know the answers to these questions I feel I feel awesome I feel awesome I feel like I move really well I have great pride in my endurance I do a lot of endurance training whether I’m on a row machine or in the pool or on the bike or sparring or heavy mitts or Jiu Jitsu jogging I worked really hard I feel great honestly I feel I feel like a stronger version of myself you know I’m not super lean I don’t have a mean six-pack like I used to um that took me a while to get used to you know what I mean like back in the day I would judge like my fitness level by the way I looked in the mirror you know I’m a heavyweight now that’s why my teammates said John you’re a heavyweight now and and uh and it’s not about what you look like it’s about how you perform and I feel like I’m performing really well you know I’ve I’ve had some close Knockouts this Camp knocking out other people that’s something that never happened in Camp in the past um when I decide I want to get guys down to the ground they go down I have a pretty much 100 takedown rate in my training right now and um I feel really good I like it get to eat what I want feel good you know what I’m saying life is good the last question for me I mean obviously you spent a lot of time fighting the absolute best in the world right so I’m just curious as you break down cereal where does he rank on that scale of best in the world like is he up there is one of the toughest challenges you’ve ever had or maybe not it you know it’s hard to say it’s hard to say whether it be the toughest challenge or not you know I I can’t predict the future you know my first golf season fight I wasn’t I wasn’t expecting him to put on the fight he did and it was an absolute War I am ready for whatever I’m ready to dominate but if I don’t Dominate and the fight goes five rounds I’m ready to press forward and I’m ready for dogfight I’m ready to bleed and sweat and leave my heart out there I’m ready for however it goes I feel pretty prepared for victory John over here you just mentioned about being prepared to bleed and stuff like that I know you’re a technician at this sport but you’re also someone who can go in there with bad intentions you want to go in there and prove that you can beat this guy up Cyril talks about this as a sport as an athletic competition do you think when it comes down to it he just doesn’t have some bad intentions in him like you can take in there well I believe that you know if if I go out there and stand in front of them and let them get into his rhythm then I’m sure he had bad intentions I won’t be lulled to sleep by him I’m like oh you know I’m just happy to be here it’s just the sport you know life goes on if I win or lose you know I feel like I fight from something a little bit different you know there’s there’s a dog inside of me it was interesting because during the countdown his coach was like you know for the tattoos are Visa fire we we focused on bringing out surreal’s dog and I don’t feel like that’s something your coach has to should have to like teach you about being a dog either you have it or you don’t and I know that I’m a dog at the end of the day I have that I have a dog in me I have a lion in me I have a a vicious Warrior inside of me it’s who I am and losing is not an option it’s just not just a sporting event to me this is this is my life this is my image this is my legacy um this is me and um my reasons why are really big you know my reasons why I’m really big and I don’t know if his energy matches mines when it comes to the seriousness of how I take this this fight in this game a lot of people are talking about oh wrestling versus striking and stuff like that but in terms of big fight experience you’ve done this right yes he’s had one or two big fights foreign but do you think there’s a chance as he’s walking to that cage on Saturday the moment just starts to build a build and get to him whereas it just won’t for you you know I I could see him staying composed uh in the moment he fought in front of his home country I’m sure that was a massive moment for him um but I’m not tied to tavasa I look nothing like them I don’t perform like him I’m not Derek Lewis I’m not Francis Nagano I’m a much much different athlete I’m by far the most versatile athlete he’s ever faced I’m the most experienced athlete he’s ever faced and whether he realizes it in the cage while walking to the cage or not he will realize it by Maybe by round two or round one he’ll he’ll realize it he’ll realize it and last one for me when you spoke to John Morgan you said that you can guarantee the fans this fight and the steepe fight is that possibly the last time we’ll see you if you beat Stevia are you content with walking away or do you have an interest in fighting these younger up and comers once again but this time in a different division uh you know really I can’t predict the future you know I speak very confidently I have a lot of belief I have a lot of faith but I can’t predict the future um like I said this this fight could be an absolute war or it could be like wow he just blew through gain you know I don’t know how it’s gonna look I think I’m gonna base it on how I’m performing you know how I’m feeling I’m just going to take it one fight at a time and um my goals my goals for myself personally is is to make this look easy and to fight at least two times this year at least and then we’ll take it we’ll just take it from there John over here uh we spoke with Anthony Smith earlier this week and he said if you have fought Francis he would probably predict you to go 50 45 over Francis and he feels Cyril is just the tougher like mixed martial arts fight so given how much tape you do watch leading up to your fights do you agree that Sarah would just be a tougher all-around fight than Francis I feel like surreal is the most incomplete fighter in the top five right now um he has really good striking and he has really good footwork but I’ve watched this fight you know he got tired in his last fight against Francis Nagano all that fancy footwork you know him supposedly being the fastest heavyweight that we’ve ever seen all that all that went away one or two takedowns making him earn getting back up to his feet that that tired him out big time I’m a wrestler and uh I wrestle people a lot and it’s a different type of endurance you know a lot of people don’t like having someone on top of them and having to earn their way back up to the speed I watch Francis Delgado in that last fight France is in the last rounds could barely move his feet he could barely lift his legs he was walking so slowly um and gained it and destroyed Francis you know what I mean um Francis wins his fights by like first round knockout second round knockoff Francis outworked surreal game surreal’s gang coach said it himself surreal’s talented Francis is a hard worker um I beat Daniel Cormier um I outworked Daniel Cormier Daniel’s slogan is Embrace The Grind Daniel Cormier outworked the out of Francis but France is the guy who outwards serial gain it’s like since when did has Francis become a guy who outworks others his gift is knockout power he got worked at work by Francis that tells me a lot that tells me a lot um I watched that fight almost every night and I just see Francis exhausted land on top of surreal gain not even trying to hurt him just being satisfied being on top and I saw no offense from the from the ground we all know cereal has nice ankle locks our team worked extensively in ankle lock defense um reversing them I just I just I just don’t see surreal being able to handle a guy like me I don’t I just can’t see it I respect him I work very hard I know I’ve talked confidently but I respect him so much and um like every opponent I give it my all I just don’t see myself losing to a guy like surreal game not getting outworked by Francis I just can’t imagine him outworking me and he could not work Francis I just can’t see that happening when you went on your your layoff you were the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world that conversation has kind of come up a lot between valkanovsky and Islam and I feel like there’s like a generation of fans that’s like hey wait like Jon Jones is fighting in a couple of weeks have we forgotten what he’s done do you think people like there’s a generation that just doesn’t hasn’t seen you fight and maybe they just don’t appreciate what you did in the past you know it’s wow the MMA game is wild I uh I have a young man coming up to me yeah excuse me Yao Ming no young men um yeah I have young men coming up to me and they’re like dude I started watching you when I was 10 years old you know today I’m 22 years old I’m like I’ve been around for a long time dude I got all these gray hairs in my beard it’s wild it’s wild um I’m honored to still be here it’s great to still be here um I’ve been inactive over the last three years when it comes to the UFC space I’ve been living a total martial arts lifestyle for the very first time in my life though you know in the past I’ve been really trained right before fights and now I I have my own team and they hold me accountable I have to be there and so you know I weight lift four days a week I train five days a week I have multiple practices a day to get to your question um volkonowski has been very active and I do believe that he deserves to be the top fighter in the world him and Islam you know I think Volcan Oxley kept that title after a loss well he deserves it man he’s refreshing he speaks well his country loves him he represents the sport well um he can’t dance we did we established that I asked him about being able to dance is funny he’s like yeah it’s your shadow box anyways um I’m fighting to be the greatest fighter ever not to be the powerful problem best right now uh we have two different motivations and I think there’s room for both of us at the top and final three Bo nickel was in here he said you guys had a little bit of a wrestling match so how’d that go it wasn’t a wrestling match Bo is Young and ambitious and uh and he’s looking for a reason to try to take me down I’m sure I’ll give him the opportunity if he wants it but I’m an old man with a lot of tricks we uh we we shook hands and I we kind of got down in the wrestling stance and I think he was thinking I was going to let his hand go and he he went to try to grab my leg and I held his hand and just kind of made him do a real accurate motion and uh we both looked at each other and I just said we got some tricks now so you didn’t walk up to him and say I bet I could take you down I did not I learned my lesson with DC I learned my lesson um but I’m super excited for Bo Nichols uh just American wrestler he represents that grit that hard work and um I could see him just going extremely far in this sport yeah he have he has one of the greatest martial arts down already which is I believe is wrestling Us wrestlers we get to we get to dictate the pace of a fight you know things get tough on us we just take it to the ground and we can also avoid being taken down we can get back to our feet when we’re in trouble and Bo has that down I think he’s going to do awesome I’m excited to get to know him better jump down here to your left you touched on your weight training and you brought in Stan the Rhino everything for your weight training talk to me about that how was it training with a former Mr Olympia bodybuilder what’s up Governor where you from uh London London yeah how you doing I’m good I’m good awesome awesome uh yeah so I I worked out with a guy named Stan efferdine for a while they call him White Rhino he’s actually Las Vegas Las Vegas a native I worked out with a guy Matt wiedemer who was uh he was a strength and conditioner coach for I believe the Browns the Browns I believe anyways both of these guys came out to Albuquerque they lived with me for nine months they taught me about lifting hard lifting heavy they talked they talked they taught me a muscular endurance which is basically lifting heavy for for lots of reps you see it guys often they’ll they’ll they’ll do a whole you know those are 600 pound deadlift and only be able to lift it once you know these guys had me doing things like 500 pounds you know for sets of 10 things like that sets of eight you know just really working that muscular endurance they taught me the importance of eating and you’ve got to eat if you want to gain size and so just eating rice with eggs in the morning and and rice for breakfast lunch and dinner six meals a day three protein shakes a day the importance of sleeping early staying hydrated just really living the lifestyle of an athlete I think that’s why I come into this event with so much confidence you know I know you guys haven’t seen me in three years I don’t very I don’t post very much about my private life or what I what I do on a day-to-day basis but my team see me they see my workout attic and um and it’s really good I’m really proud of it I’m very confident I I genuinely believe that if you were to put me in some sort of CrossFit event with all the heavyweights in the UFC I believe I’d come out in first place there may be guys that can binge a little more than me guys that maybe can deadlift a little more than me guys that can squat more than me but when it comes to running long distance running fast lifting big numbers having muscular endurance I believe I’m a total package athlete right now I’m very very fit like I said I don’t have a six-pack right now which is something I’m used to going into fight week but I do not deny my my physical fitness right now I feel better than ever and you touch on the big three lift there what were your records if you could remember when you were working so I ended up training camp uh bench pressing 315 for five um deadlifts is about about 6 40 and my bench is about 500 pounds I have maybe 520 somewhere around there uh towards the end I wasn’t going for big numbers I was just going for explosiveness and muscular endurance but I’ve gotten pretty strong over the last three years the final question for me A lot has been made about this new heavyweight frame if you go what was the peak weight that you reached during the three-year hias a few months ago I got up to about 267. 267 but I I felt a little more bloated and I didn’t like my endurance at that weight so I I plan on competing right around anywhere between 2 45 and 250 on Fight Night was real gain I don’t think I need to be overly big in this event I just need to have the engine to carry me through the event I have the engine John right here uh you tweeted out right here you tweeted out the other day I feel officially cleared and there will be no asterisk next to my performances anymore I think I know what you’re getting at with that but for people who are maybe uneducated can you elaborate yeah so uh usada has changed some of the rules uh regarding picogram levels and what’s allowed and um I’ve come to find out that all my all my findings were under the new legal limit meaning that I would have been cleared from every test I’ve ever taken and and that means a lot to me I’m grateful to be the athlete who fought the system who could afford the lawyers and the scientists to improve my innocence I do believe that I I don’t know if this could work Carry the Cross or like took the Bullet For the Rest of all the young athletes but I was the first to have to go through it and uh people consider me a cheater and now if that same rule I would have applied back then it would have never even made the media it would have never been a deal at all my win over Daniel Cormier would not be a no contest it would be a knockout KO Victory so I’m hoping that with these rule changes maybe we could go back and make that no contacts to win that would mean a lot to me I have no ill will towards usada or or anything like that it was just something that we needed to go through I was I was the first one and one of the biggest names to go through it and I’m glad I did because some of these younger fighters wouldn’t have been able to survive something like that they would have just been cut or or not been able to afford the lawyers or whatever so I took the bullet for this sport for Major League Baseball and I’m glad that that fighters in the future get to avoid what I went through it was hell being considered a steroid cheat and I’m glad that people can see clearly now that I never was and I feel set free you mentioned uh just one more I mentioned that we don’t get to see much your personal life and stuff like that but uh last time you’re in Vegas the Hall of Fame stuff some of that did spill out into the public uh we haven’t heard you really addressed any of that stuff just want to give you the opportunity if there’s anything you want to say about the next question fair enough are you Samuel oh in the back you mentioned that you have a different motivation and what is that for you now and that coming into this fight specifically so my motivation my motivation my motivation is to become the best man that I can be be a reflection of God’s love and his forgiveness and ultimately have fans from around the world to see the Christ that’s inside of me we are none of us are perfect and we all have ups and downs in life and I genuinely believe genuinely believe that my imperfection makes me very relatable to a lot of people and one of my goals is for people to one day see like if if if a person like John could love Jesus Christ and a person like John could have a relationship with Jesus Christ then maybe I couldn’t too and I really believe that my Platform One Day are going to lead a lot of people to Jesus Christ I’m excited to get things right eventually you know I’m 35 years old and I’m at age where you can’t make many excuses for downfalls and stuff like that but I am a young man and I’m looking forward to the man that I’m going to be one day when maybe in my 40s you know I’m not saying I won’t make mistakes again in the future but maybe the man that I’m in my 40s or 45 50 years old I’m going to be a man with a lot of experience I’ll be able to be able to talk to young men and tell them you know things they don’t want to do roads they don’t want to go down and ultimately I really do believe that a few Souls will be saved because of my existence and that is my motivation to build a big platform and ultimately find ways to give glory to God final John what’s up man uh there’s a theory out there that uh your last three title fights you were bored and that you were basically playing with your food now that time has passed and you’re in a new division was that true uh yeah it was it’s not that I was bored and playing with my food it was just that it was you know I I wanted more I wanted I wanted greater challenges you know these guys were relatively unknown a lot of these guys and I really wasn’t happy with my pay either that was a really big thing and I was at a place where I was just like how can I how can I Spike the interest of the fans you know no one knew Dominic Reyes for the most part he was a killer knocking out everyone undefeated no one respected him you know as good as he was and we saw we saw how good he was competing up up into fighting me no one respected him and I was just stuck in this place of like you know how can I get to a certain level as an athlete like you know you see these guys Deontay wild there and you see all these athletes you know who are not absolute Legends you know like these guys were right around my level been competing right around the same time but these guys got these Ferraris and private jets and then I’m just like like how can I get there you know what I mean and I just started to realize that I needed to bump up that’s what the fans wanted to see the whole time it’s like maybe that’s where my my big money fights are going to be and um I just decided to to make the leap I feel like heavyweights uh our division there’s a lot of guys in their mid-30s early 30s and um I just felt like the weight Cuts were getting a little bit tougher and I just felt I was at an age where I was just ready to eat more and lift more and be a big boy and so no time left the present we’re here now and that at the heavyweight division has been kind of in disarray since you left that division did you kind of foresee that coming like that that title was going to change hands a lot it’s what happened before I became the champion you know little Machida had the belt Rashad Evans had the belt Rampage had the built um Forest had the belt uh I mean it just kept getting passed around then I came along and I was able to hold it down for a very long time and then I leave the division and I was getting passed around again it just shows how competitive these guys are and it humbly it shows how special my reign was to be able to hold that down for so long and it’s a very special thing I don’t take any of it for granted Jones is down here it’s been a three years since you fought and also three years since Conor McGregor had a win he’s back this year how do you see Conor coming back against Michael Chandler there’s only one Conor McGregor I love Connor I I love I love what he represents man he’s he’s big he’s big he has a gigantic brand some sense it’s just as big as our sport you know and uh it’s going to be great it’s going to be great when he comes back he’s going to bring a whole new energy even more fans it’s great for all of us it’s great for the sponsors um it’s great for the UFC I wish Connor all the best I love I love the way he’s living his life I never thought in my time I’d see an MMA fighter with a Ferrari yacht right well he’s done it Lamborghini Lamborghini yeah see you guys know um I’m so proud of him it it opens doors for all of us it lets young Fighters know that it’s possible you know there’s there’s great business outside of the sport there’s life-changing opportunity outside of the sport and I’m just so grateful for for uh being that example for all of us and just finally I know you’re a commenting of Alex pereira’s post before he won the title he’s gonna rematch Izzy again fourth time they fall how do you see that second fight going in MMA between them I believe uh Pereira is going to win again you know there’s some athletes that just have other athletes number and um he works hard and I’m rooting for him I believe he’s going to do it again thanks John thank you guys guys thank you so much for your time God bless you all make sure you’re watching UFC 285 this Saturday night only on Pay-per-view