At this point, everything that Jon Jones has to say about his rivalry with Rashad Evans has been said (and said, and said). But with less than a week remaining until their looooong-awaited showdown, we wanted to get a better sense of Bones’s mindset heading into his third light-heavyweight belt-defense at UFC 145. CagePotato video-correspondent Sal Mora spent a few minutes with the champ at his Jackson’s MMA homebase in Albuquerque for an exclusive fight-week interview that you can watch after the jump. Some highlights…
– On the possibility of a reconciliation with Evans after the fight: ”I honestly don’t know what will go on after the fight, but I really don’t have any interest in becoming friends with Rashad again. I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to do a job.”
– On moving to heavyweight: “I did ask Dana White, ‘Can I get a fight at heavyweight at the end of this year?’ and he told me that he didn’t think that was best for me right now. I’m totally okay with where I’m at and competing at the light-heavyweight division. I think there’s a lot of great competition left…I’m sure guys like Lyoto [Machida] are gonna be coming back around for their rematches too, so everything’s going according to plan.”
– On Alistair Overeem and the performance-enhancing drug crisis in MMA: “I’ve never seen anyone here at Jackson’s MMA participate in any type of steroid use. I don’t know anybody on our team that could possibly be taking steroids. And as far as Alistair Overeem, that’s really his problem. Steroids is unfortunately a part of all sports and he was just the one that got caught…It’s really not my world, I’ll compete against someone on steroids any day. I believe in some cases that people who abuse steroids have weakness in their hearts, you know, they don’t believe in working hard. I’m not against steroids, I think in some cases you need steroids, like if you’re an older gentlemen, or you have some type of illness or something like that, but when an athlete abuses it, I mean that’s their business.”
– On where he’ll be in five years: ”I see myself continuing to work hard, continuing to try to strive to solidify a place in the history books of the sport.”
UFC 145: Jon Jones Video Interview – Watch More Funny Videos