Jon Jones talks about opting out of surgery; Expects to face Evans, Machida or Rampage in 2011

Hi I'm Jon Jones



I save old ladies from from robbers and attend charity events. In my spare time I destroy MMA legends and make the toughest guys on the planet look kids fighting against their Dads.



It's sickening

except he took most of the credit for catching that mugger when it was greg jackson who took the inititative and chased him down... He ought to beat Rashad handily though.

Fair enough. The way Bones broke it down makes all the sense in the World. I will never doubt you again Jon Jones!



NOW:



I love it how SUCCESS packs a bunch of HATERS! Why everyone on Rashad's Nutsack all of the sudden!?!? Jon Jones is CLASS! Period!

Is he class? Remember when the 12 to 6 elbows he hit Mat Hammil with? Since I'm pretty sure they don't train for that I find it hard to believe it was a accident. Guys a ****, he can talk the talk all he wants.

People turned on this guy quick. He doesn't seem so bad to me. I hope he walks through Rashad if they fight.

Other than the fact that his MMA persona is completely 'fake' (like Rashad quoted), Jones has the ability to rub people the wrong way.



There's rumors going around that Wanderlei and Nogueira don't like the guy either. What Jon Jones and his fans can call 'swagger', the rest of the world calls it being 'smug'.



And then claiming to be injuried and opting out of the fight with Evans doesn't exactly get praised in the MMA community.



If Jones takes the fight with Rampage or Machida before Evans, then that might confirm some of Rashad's bulls*** claims about being able to smother Jones with his wrestling and ground & pound. BUT we'll see what happens from here...

When Ali goes around calling himself the greatest people love him for it. When Jon Jones does not hide the natural confidence of being so good at what he does people call him smug. Let him have a swagger. let him be ****y - he has the right being as good as he does.

Be honest doomsday. You know you are a bit biased against Bones because of what he did to Shogun. That isn't the only reason you don't like him, but it is one of the major underlying factors.

Yes, I do not like the man nor the fighter. Nevertheless, I will not discredit what he has done because I am not biased. I am simply saying, Jones has the distinct ability to get under people's skin. As you can clearly see, Jones (along with Evans) has been acting like a school girl, and dropping the fight with Rashad because of a minor 'injury' was not a smart move (P.R. wise).

actually at the time most americans really didnt like ali because they thought he was smug/arrogant. only after he got parkinsons everyone started to love him.

Definitely agree, Ali wasn't liked at first. People warmed up to him towards the end of his career.



Let's not compare Jones to Ali just yet though azzikia.

Look, screw what people think about him if he's smug and believes he's that good then so be it nothing wrong with that and he is on a very high horse at the mo, cause lets face it, he's champ.



Problem comes in having to prove that he is the man, yes he beat shogun convincingly, but can he do it against a 2nd title contending opponent? Cause if he acts like this people that don't like it will love to see him fall and it will be all the more dramatic the more he rubs people up the wrong way.



I personally don't have anything against what he's saying and I think it's too early to form strong opionions about hm cause there's not enough content to prove he is what he's being perceivbed to be by some...mountain out of a molehill if you ask me.



Machida or Rampage has the best chance against him...strikers chance...he will outclass evans in striking because I simply don't think he can take jones down and keep him there...he'll be forced to stand and his only chance then is that he activates bitch mode and starts muscling him up against the cage like he did with rampage.

That's my point. He's placed himself on a very high horse with extreme expectations. The guy is now claiming he will be the Heavyweight champ in the near future and be like Anderson Silva and GSP.



It's not impossible, but his striking is far from being great and he sheds 25 lbs to avoid the Heavyweights. Jones wants nothing to do with guys like Lesnar, Velasquez, Overeem, Dos Santos, Big Foot, etc. He would be at a disadvantage power and size wise with his skinny frame.



This fight with Evans could provide some very useful intel about his skillset (IF the fight ever happens). Machida is a very interesting match up, Lyoto has great takedown defense and he's very elusive and accurate when coming to the stand up aspect of the fight game.

Sheds 25lbs to avoid the HW's? He normally weights about 225-235 the diets himself down to 215-220 and cuts the remainder like every other LHW. Rampage was reported to weight 250lbs before and Forrest usually weights 240 before his training camps, are THEY ducking the HW's too?

First of all it's not Jones choosing his opponents. UFC tells the UFC champions who they're fighting next. Therefore, he can't choose who he fights. He made it clear that him and Rashad will fight regardless of the situation. As for Rashad not being able to take Jones to the ground and keep him there...let me see..who has attempted to take Jones to the ground? Nobody..We haven't seen his takedown defense tested nor have we seen him on his back(Shogun is not a takedown guru so that wouldn't count). Bader never tried and he's the best wrestler(to my knowledge) that Jones has faced. As for the standup between Jones and Rashad, there's no telling how that would go either. Jones could have an advantage if he incorporates a lot of kicks in his stand up combos ..but remember that Evans is very quick with knockout power AND he probably knows how to get on Jones's inside based on training with him. There's no telling what will happen in this fight, but I just know I want to see it sooner than later.

The takedown attempts by O'brien were telegraphed and he didn't try them very much in that fight. Hamil grabbed Jones leg off a kick in attempt for a takedown which he didn't commit to. Bader's takedown attempt wasn't a full-hearted one as his spirit was already broken. I hold to what I was saying about his takedown defense and his game off his back not truly being tested. Evans has a better takedown than the aforementioned fighters. Rampage, who has proven takedown defense, couldn't stop Rashad's takedown. I'm not saying the defense is not there..but I am saying that it hasn't truly been put to the test.

I'll admit that saying nobody tried was the wrong choice of words. I'm not trying to convince myself of anything nor do I care what those aforementioned guys accolades are. The attempts to take Jones down were weak and limited. My point is that his takedown defense hasn't truly been tested. Evans MMA takedowns are better than the aforementioned by far. I'd say Bader's is up there with him(even though I'd still say Evans is better at it), but he didn't really try too hard to take Jones down. Again(as I said before), I'm not saying he doesn't have good takedown defense...I'm saying we really don't know how good his defense is based on how much it(and to which degree) it has been tested.

I'm not sure if you understand what I'm saying. Maybe the way I explained it was misinterpreted(maybe not). I'm not questioning the abilities of the guys we're talking about. I understand that they're wrestlers who have taken many people to the ground and are fully capable. What I'm saying is that when they fought Jones they were not putting forth their best efforts in trying to take him down. They may know how to do it, but they didn't seem to try very hard. They seemed more content with standing up with him(unlike they may have done against other fighters). I'm not saying they would have succeeded in taking him down. I'm saying we don't know yet from what's been displayed. I can give you 2 recent examples of great efforts being put forth to take someone down. When Phil Davis fought Lil Nog it was very obvious that his plan was to take him to the ground. He put forth great efforts to do so. Another example would be when Faber fought Wineland. He put forth great efforts to take Wineland to the ground.(okay 2 new plus 1 old) When Rampage and Randleman fought he was trying hard to take Rampage to the ground and it was obvious..He didn't succeed, but it's fair to say he was trying hard. Nobody has tried very hard to take Jones to the ground(that's how I should have worded it in the beginning instead of saying nobody tried). We know for sure that Jones has good standup, takedowns, clinch, and ground game since that's what he's been displaying. We just don't know how good his takedown defense and ground game from his back are. We can speculate from what we've seen, but we don't know for sure. As for my opinion on Evans having better takedown than the aforementioned fighters, it's based on what I've seen him and them do in MMA. He's quicker with it and shows more variations in his takedown strategy with a high success rate. Hopefully that clarifies what I meant. Also, for the record, I'm actually a fan of Jon Jones so this is my non-biased opinion. If I think a fighter is skilled at something(whether I like them or not) I'll say so.

If you read my first couple sentences I explained that MAYBE you misinterpreted what I meant and maybe you didn't. This was in no way an effort to force you to agree with me. I could care less. I just wanted to explain where I was coming from. When I'm rating good takedown defense I'm taking into account all of the things you said and more. There are several points you made that I disagree with, and some where I can identify big differences in perception. But as you basically said it makes no sense to keep going back and forth. We just have differences in perception of this matter. As Jones progresses we will see just how good all areas of his game truly are. For now we'll have to wait and see. I think he's great though and hope he continues to excel.

Agreed Edub, fighters like Hamill, Bader, O'Brien, etc all tried and failed miserably.



Jones has elite TDD -- after all, his wrestling in itself is elite.



Yet, neither of them had explosive speed. Don't know if Evans can provide that but his takedowns have proven to be effective lately against Silva and Jackson.

Keep in mind that all of the guys you listed are bigger than Rashad and probably stronger and are equally decorated wrestlers.

That's just because those people were never his fans in the first place.

I dont doubt Jones' ability to beat Rashad at all Rampage or Machida now those are some interesting match ups for him.

Are they mandy gras necklaces??? What is he doing there? Is he Flashing or something???

Might be flashing man-boobs to get more necklaces :D

i dont think he will fight machida. he jus got his first win after 2 losses so he'll probably need 2 more wins. i think he'll beat evans and prob fight rampage next. jones vs rampage is a interesting fight and can prob go either way. im really jus interested on whos really on the top of the division. u got evans, then rampage vs hamill, then griffin vs shogun, and then machida. i think machida should fight winner of griffin vs shogun for next number one contender after rampage

in the cage its hard to not like jon jones. but his interviews ...

why are you so hard on jon jones? he's beating up everyone inside & outside the octagon. give him respect for his ability. a lot of people believed that rua will kick his ass. look what happened.

Why cant they reschedule the Jones v Evans bout now that Jones has opted out of Surgery and plans to fight in 2011 anyway? Evans has waited for a title shot for months now and Im sure he wouldnt mind waiting a little bit longer if it ment he could face Jones for the title rather than Phil Davis

That's the million dollar question... He still has eight weeks (standard training camp length) from the time his cast will be removed to prepare. So why not? Its not like Phil Davis has been training for the fight long.

@ Joey Santosus

exactly, I really cant see any reason why this fight cannot take place now

lol this guy is funny atleast let him try to defend his belt 1 or 2 times or 8 times which probably wont happen let him move up in weight and fight a couple times lol silva is the best!! Jones is a pu$$ you see the doc b4 you opt out of a fight! he was scard

I'm thinking he didn't, general perception is hard to beat though

I dont understand why everyone is trying to grill Jones. From what We know, he opted out of surgery and thats that.



Dana White and Joe Silva know this now. Why arent you all moaning about them? They can scrap Davis vs Rashad if they want. Theres time. If they tried to do that and Jones still didnt want that fight at 133 then his criticsm is warranted.

None of us really know whats up. So relax.

willing something might be a good way to start, still it's only a start ;)

He stated that he didn't attend the summit. So how did this so called confrontation between him and Evans happen? Didn't someone say it happened at the summit? Some of these reporters must be making stuff up or exaggerating something.

All you needed for it was to rhyme.