After teasing retirement for over a year, Jones is now saying age is just a number and teasing at least one more fight … for the right amount of money.
Jon Jones is talking about sticking around in fighting for a long time, but he’s going to do it on his schedule.
The UFC heavyweight champion appeared on stock trading guru Alex Gonzalez’s YouTube channel where he drove the Influencer’s $5 million Bugatti and talked about his future plans.
“I’m 37 years old, but I feel young in spirit,” Jones said. “I’m still competing at a really high level. I’m still able to do physical things that I used to be able to do, like weightlifting, swimming, and running, all the things I used to be able to do. I actually feel I’m becoming a better athlete.”
“Age is just a number. And I feel like when you keep a positive attitude and take care of your body, take care of yourself, you can stay young for a long time.”
Jones teased retirement from the UFC a lot during the lead-up to his last fight at UFC 309. But now his five year plan has at least one more fights in it — and a lot of acting. Jones pointed to movies as an area of interest and recently shared video on the set of a film where he plays a soldier.
“Within the next five years I wanna win one more fight,” he said. “Maybe even two more fights, and try and make as much money as possible in the UFC.”
“I want to launch off my acting career,” he added. “I’ve always wanted to be an actor. I think I do pretty good on camera and I’ve done little commercials and things like that. Every time I’m on set, everybody’s like, ‘Bro, it’s hard to believe that you’re a fighter. You know, you conduct yourself just like all of our professional actors.’ So that’s my five-year plan.”
“Ten years from now I just want to be the best dad I can be.”
The UFC will have to compete with acting and other money making endeavors to get “Bones” back in the cage. And to be clear, Jon put ‘making money’ as a key part of all his plans.
“Money is a motivator,” Jones said. “I think most people lie when they said they weren’t motivated by money, but I’ve been doing the UFC work just out of love too. I really love what I do. I really love making money. I really love writing my name down in the history books and being a guy who’ll be able to live forever through the UFC record books. That all means a lot.”
“But another thing: Dana White, my boss, he told me a long time ago, he was like he was like, ‘Jon, money will never be your issue. Because I never want you to worry about money. It will never be your issue. It will always come to you for the rest of your life. And it seems like the less I think about money, the more it comes to me. It just starts falling in my hands these days, and I’m grateful for it.”
“I make really good money doing really, really silly things,” Jones said with a laugh. “You know, show up to a party for half an hour, $100,000. Sign a few items, $100,000. I barely leave my house for anything less than $100,000 these days. It just comes from left and right. I’m grateful for it.”
UFC CEO Dana White is confident he can get Jones back in the cage to fight Tom Aspinall, and Jones seems willing to do it for the right amount of money. He’s certainly positioned himself well to have them back up the Brinks truck. Will they do it? And in a timely fashion? Let’s see where we are a few months into 2025, because right now it’s still unclear.