DENVER — At Thursday afternoon’s UFC 135 open workouts Quinton “Rampage” Jackson continued to blast UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones for what he interpreted as disrespect, but this time he had a new accusation to level at his opponent.
“He badmouthed my coach today, here at the open workout,” Jackson told reporters. “That’s not right. The kid has no respect for nobody. He needs to be humbled.”
The coach in question was British boxing coach Mark Kinney, a stout veteran of the fight game who told MMA Fighting that Jones was “just trying to wind me up.”
“He said something to me and then I said something back to him,” said Kinney, who declined to reveal exactly what was said, but painted Jones as the instigator. “I’m not going to lose sleep over it,” he added.
In Jackson’s mind, it was just the latest example of disrespectful behavior from Jones, who had long since disappeared from the MusclePharm gym by the time Jackson made the accusation to reporters.
“It’s very disrespectful what he did to my coach,” Jackson said. “You don’t come up to your opponent’s coach and talk crap. For the honor and respect of this sport, you don’t do that. Jon Jones says I fight for money, and this and that and he fights for fun and honor and stuff like that. But he’s not showing the [signs] of a fighter who fights for honor. Yes, I fight for money, because this is the career I chose. But at the same time I have a lot of honor and respect for this sport and other fighters.”
But Kinney, the man who was supposedly disrespected, brushed off the incident as a fairly tame run-in. Maybe Jones was feeling just a little too confident in the days leading up to the fight, he suggested, but the champ could be in for a surprise.
After Saturday night, Kinney said, no one will be asking about what Jones said to him or whether he really had a spy in Jackson’s camp. “They’re going to be asking about his concussion. They’re going to be asking whether he’ll be in hospital for two weeks or four.”
Both Kinney and Jackson continued to insist that Jones had someone on the inside of the challenger’s training camp feeding him information, but neither would say who it was. Jackson said he eventually found out the identity of the so-called spy, and his manager took action against him.
“Let’s just say he’s hurting financially right now,” Jackson said. “But we did find the spy, and as I suspected he wasn’t a fighter.”
And while most people are counting Jackson out against the taller, lankier Jones, Kinney hinted that the team has a plan for getting inside the champion’s longer reach and doing damage in close. Of course, he wasn’t eager to divulge that information with the fight still two days away.
“But he’ll get inside,” Kinney said. “Trust me.”
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