Jon Jones more than happy to shut up James Toney if light heavyweight option wasn’t available
UFC light heavyweight star on the rise, Jon Jones has explained that he’d be more than happy to step into the octagon with heavyweight boxing champion, James Toney after the pair engaged in a heated war of words last week in the press.
Speaking via MMAJunkie.com, Jones said about his fight last night with Vladimir Matyushenko:
“You saw me go in there before the fight making jokes and trying to have fun. That’s me psyching myself out to try and relax and try and have fun. This is the game I signed up to play. Just staying relaxed in the octagon and remembering to have fun, that’s the key, I feel.”
“To be honest, [the expectations] really do bother me. It makes me really nervous sometimes. I was starting to beat up myself and say, ‘OK, not only do I need to win this fight, but I have to impress people and look spectacular. Like (WEC champ) Jose Aldo, he came out and every fight was so sweet. Man, he doesn’t have a bad fight. I was starting to give myself that same type of pressure.”
“I talked to my mentors and my coaches, and they’re like, ‘Hey, Jon – listen. You do this for yourself. You lose a fight, all this media and all this hype train is going to be done, so don’t even worry about the train. There is no train. You do this for your family, and you do this for yourself. Mainly, you do this to have fun.’”
“I’ve got a lot of work to do, and there’s a quote that says, ‘A real black belt is a black belt because he’s aware of how much he doesn’t know.’ I’m just aware that I’m still a kid in this sport, and I have a lot more maturing to do as a man and as an athlete. I’m just going to stay on the ground.”
“Another big thing is all my teammates are in their 30s and late 20s, so they check me when they see anything going on. If I miss a practice or something, there’s somewhere there always going, ‘Where were you this morning?’ I have a lot of people that steer me in the right direction.”
Jones then switched his attentions to the future and the slew of light heavyweights he could possibly face next.
“Every opponent I’ve had are really tough guys. Right now, I’m passing these tests with flying colors. I really don’t want to sound arrogant, so I’ve got to be careful the way I word this, but I want to fight someone who’s really going to give me a really tough test. That has to be the champion or whoever. I want to fight someone who’s supposedly much better than me … so I can really step up and evolve to a different level.”
“There’s the champion (Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua), and he’s the toughest guy right now. He’s very well-rounded. He’s a great striker. Just like the top three contenders. I really want to push myself against the No. 1, 2 and 3 guys now. I really feel like that needs to happen. The top three guys are the guys I’d like to fight – except for (teammate) Rashad (Evans), obviously.”
Jones finally spoke about his weight and inevitably the possibility of moving up to take on loud mouth, James Toney down the line.
“I got up to about 231 (pounds) this time around, and today I performed around 226 (pounds), so this is the heaviest I’ve ever performed at, and I felt as if I was just as fast.”
“Randy Couture, he bumps up to heavyweight all the time, and he always looks very impressive against the slower guy and now I actually have a heavyweight that I wouldn’t mind fighting. That’s James Toney – ‘Mr. I’m going to slap Jon in the face.’ I’d bump up for that fight any day.”
The UFC will be keeping everything crossed on August 28th when Randy Couture takes on James Toney in the first major MMA vs. boxing fight to be contested. If “The Natural” comes up short, the promotion may decide to call upon Jones to get the job done, figuring his athleticism would be something Toney just couldn’t keep up with.
By Michael Pepper. (Follow me on Twitter)
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