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Jon Jones on Injured Hand, Future Fights and ‘Most Dangerous Man’

Filed under: UFC, FanHouse ExclusiveA hand injury has UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones out of commission at the moment, so he’s spending less time on the physical side of MMA and more time on the mental side.

In an interview with MMAFighting.c…

Filed under: UFC, FanHouse Exclusive

A hand injury has UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones out of commission at the moment, so he’s spending less time on the physical side of MMA and more time on the mental side.

In an interview with MMAFighting.com, Jones said that it will be at least another month before he’s cleared for full-contact training again, and that has him working more on strategy and tactics and staying away from striking and grappling. But Jones said he does expect to return to the Octagon this year, and he doesn’t think there’s any dearth of available opponents.

Jones also talked about his desire to coach on The Ultimate Fighter, the fights he’s most looking forward to watching, and whether he deserves to be considered the world’s most dangerous man. The full interview is below.

Michael David Smith: Let’s start with the question everyone is asking you: How’s your hand?
Jon Jones: My hand is healing up, but it’s definitely not ready to withstand full-on combat training. But it is healing up.

What can you do and what can’t you do?
As far as training, the main thing I can’t do is grapple — catching myself falling hurts it and causes pain. That’s actually the biggest thing, catching myself while falling, and that’s the thing I have to stay away from the most. As for what I can do, I can run, I can shadow box, I can study footage, I can come up with tactics, come up with strategies to prepare myself for future opponents and I think the mental aspect of combat is really important, and that’s something that I can work on right now.

When do you think you’ll be ready to fight next?
I’m not sure.

Do you think it will be this year?
Yes, this year would be nice, but I’m really not sure. I know I need exactly one more month before I’m clear to start working out again, so this year would be nice — I’d be happy.

Who do you think your next opponent will be?
I don’t know, man. That’s up to Dana White, we’ll have to wait and see who wins and who loses and whether people have injuries and stuff like that. So I can’t really make a statement on that. I’ll just have to let the fights work out.

Given your time frame of maybe fighting late in the year, do you think you might be a coach on the next season of The Ultimate Fighter?
Being a coach on The Ultimate Fighter is on my vision wall — something I plan to do as a goal and a life dream. Hopefully it happens but when it happens I don’t know.

What’s your opinion of the state of the light heavyweight division these days? Most people think it’s the most talented division in the UFC, but there haven’t been a whole lot of title fights, with Shogun Rua and Lyoto Machida fighting twice and then Shogun needing close to a year off before fighting you, and now you needing some time off with your hand, do you think it’s a problem that the title isn’t being defended all that often?
No, not at all. There are lots of entertaining fights to be had even if there aren’t title fights. There’s great talent and almost every fighter in the Top 10 could potentially be in a title fight in this organization.

As a fan are there any fights in particular you’re looking forward to?
Junior dos Santos vs. Shane Carwin — that should be a great fight to watch, and that’s the fight I’m most looking forward to. And then there’s Rampage Jackson against Matt Hamill, that’s a fight that could go so many different ways so I’m looking forward to that as well.

You technically have a loss on your record to Matt Hamill although even he admits that you didn’t really lose that fight. Do you have any desire to fight him again and maybe get a definitive win over him? Do you think that if he beats Rampage Jackson he’d deserve to fight you?
I don’t think him beating Rampage would be enough for him to earn a title fight. I have no desire to fight Matt Hamill again. That was a great performance and it’s history now. I’m looking for new opponents, new threats and new challenges. I’ve already had the Hamill fight.

You’re nominated for the most dangerous man in Spike’s Guys’ Choice Awards. It’s you against Manny Pacquiao. Do you think of yourself as the most dangerous man in the world?
No, I don’t. I think there are guys out there who would probably beat me up in a fight. If you ever think to yourself as the biggest man there’s going to be someone bigger. If you let yourself think you’re the best man someone else will be better. I have to focus on getting better myself. So I don’t think I’m the world’s most dangerous man. But when it comes to me and Pacquiao, I would certainly beat him in an MMA match because I’m so much bigger than him and it’s mixed martial arts compared to someone who just uses one martial art in boxing. But the whole situation is just an honor to be a part of, and hopefully they choose me.

Where do you put yourself among all the fighters in MMA? Do you think you’re the best, pound for pound?
No, not at all. I would still be behind Georges St. Pierre and Anderson Silva. I’ve had some great performances but I have some improving to do as a martial artist. Shogun was a great champion to beat but there were a lot of holes in his game. I still have to prove I can beat phenomenal wrestlers and phenomenal boxers. I have to do my best against every style of martial artist and show I’m a complete martial artist. So I don’t consider myself the pound-for-pound best. But I do consider myself one of the top martial artists in that I think I’m one of the people who really loves martial arts, who cherishes what it means to be a martial artist in and out of the cage.

Is there anyone you could point to whom you haven’t fought yet who would be the best opponent for you?
No. I just look at the whole division. I don’t see one guy I haven’t fought.

Immediately after you beat Shogun, Joe Rogan said on the pay-per-view broadcast, “He might be the greatest talent that we’ve ever seen in the UFC.” Do you think of yourself along those lines?
I think that could be the case in the future. But I just have to strive for greatness, keep the passion, keep the dedication, keep working toward my goals. Right now I think that’s a little premature to say, but I think it could be true one day.

Are you surprised by how fast stardom has come for you? Not just being a UFC champion but also being on The Tonight Show and that sort of thing?
Yes, that’s very surprising. My goal was just to be the best fighter I could be and now I’m achieving things beyond that like being a role model and having people know who I am outside of MMA, and that’s really, really cool. That’s what comes from hard work and dedication and striving for greatness.

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MMA Photo Tribute: Fighters and Random-Ass Celebrities

(Chuck Liddell poses with ‘Taboo’, co-host of Our Time.)

We have no idea how most of these encounters came about — but we’re sure they were all fairly awkward. Here are 21 of our favorite photos of MMA fighters rubbing shoulders with reality show stars, B-list actors, and aging rock royalty. Ah, the perks of fame…

(Cain Velasquez: The meat in a douche sandwich.)

(Chuck Liddell poses with ‘Taboo’, co-host of Our Time.)

(Cain Velasquez: The meat in a douche sandwich.)

(“…so then I snuck into Paul Walker’s trailer, put my balls on his forehead, and took a picture of it! You should have seen his face! Hahahaha! With my balls on it! Oh man!”)

(Rosie O’Donnell and her adopted son Urijah.)

(Tito Ortiz with Donnie Wahlberg, former New Kid on the Block and current brother of the guy who produces Entourage.)

(“Ay dawg, lemme use ‘Honky Cat‘ for my next walkout song.”)

(“Sure lady, I’ll sign your ti–HOLY FUCK YOU’RE CINDY CRAWFORD.”)

(“And I guess at that moment I realized that perhaps it was me that had the nasty ass stank breff the whole time.”)

(Verne Troyer actually trains jiu-jitsu. His grappling dummy is a Teddy Ruxpin.)

(Carlos Santana still needs a lot of work on that fist-pose.)

(Rashad Evans with Ice-T and his freaky wife Coco.)

(“That’s right, baby, a starring role in the next Steven Soderbergh flick. Now come on, you can trust Uncle Mickey.”)

(Jon Jones shares war stories with 50 Cent, chokes out Jay Leno.)

(Dan Hardy steals some metal essence from Pantera’s Vinnie Paul.)

(Nothing impresses LL Cool J more than a giant watch.)

(Roger Huerta and Laura Prepon, in happier times.)

(Rampage, please just read the teleprompter.)

(Forrest Griffin with Ton Jones of ‘Auction Hunters’. Now *that’s* random…)

(Fedor Emelianenko, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and their dates.)

Official B/R MMA Rankings May 2011: Top 10 Light Heavyweights in MMA

Here is the first installment of the Bleacher Report MMA Rankings. Each month on the first and 15th of the month we will publish divisional rankings. On the first of each month we will post our pound-for-pound rankings. The rankings were voted on by nu…

The rankings were voted on by numerous writers on Bleacher Report and do not reflect any of their rankings personally. The rankings are an average of each writer’s vote for each weight class.

Special thanks to those who contributed:

Jason Schielke

Nick Caron

Nick Colon

J.P. Smith

Dale De Souza

Blake Dreisbach

Andrew Mahlmann

Michael Evans

Sean Smith

Sal DeRose

Begin Slideshow

Brock Lesnar, Jon Jones and Company, Is Losing Main Events Part of the Game?

Within the last month the UFC has lost three main events and four of the fighters in those events due to injury or illness. Furthermore, if one looks back to this past February the main event between Rashad Evans and Mauri…

Within the last month the UFC has lost three main events and four of the fighters in those events due to injury or illness.

Furthermore, if one looks back to this past February the main event between Rashad Evans and Mauricio Rua was lost when Evans injured his knee.

Fortunately for the UFC, Jon Jones was able to step in on short notice and a new star was born when Jones took the light heavyweight title from Rua in dominating fashion.

Unfortunately situations like the one with Jones stepping in on short notice to face Rua aren’t the status quo when fighters have to pull out of a fight.

Often times the injured fighter is replaced by a fighter who maybe wasn’t the best fit, but was in the right place at the right time or the fight is cancelled all together.

The heavily anticipated rematch between Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard was put on hold when both fighters had to pull out citing injury and the UFC 130 main event will now be Quinton Jackson vs Matt Hamill.

An interesting fight no doubt, but there is no title on the line and Jackson vs Hamill is certainly not on the level of Edgar vs Maynard three.

The aforementioned Jones has been replaced by Phil Davis to fight Rashad Evans in the main event for UFC 133 and once again, fans will be deprived of a title fight, although there is still time to find a title fight between now and August 6.

The interesting story behind the Jones situation is that Evans and Jones used to be teammates who vowed never to fight one another until Jones changed his mind and then the bad blood started to boil over.

Now Davis vs. Evans is a great fight, but that hype train simply doesn’t have the steam of Jones vs. Evans.

Finally just last week it was announced in an emergency media conference call by UFC president Dana White and former UFC heavyweight champion and Ultimate Fighter 13 coach Brock Lesnar that Lesnar would have to pull out of his fight with Junior Dos Santos due to the recurrence of his diverticulitis.

Of course the UFC was quick to find a replacement for Dos Santos as former contender Shane Carwin was already training to welcome UFC newcomer John-Olav Einemo to the Octagon at UFC 131 in Vancouver.

Carwin is definitely worthy of the fight and with the knock out power between himself and Dos Santos, it should be an exciting fight to boot—perhaps more exiting than Lesnar vs. Dos Santos.

The only problem is that Carwin doesn’t have the drawing power of Lesnar and it simply renders the finale to season 13 of The Ultimate Fighter anti-climatic to say the least.

Obviously any time a fighter has to pull out of a fight it is a raw deal for everyone—the fans because they don’t get to see the fights they want, the promoter because they have to scramble to find a new fight and risk losing PPV buys, and finally, but most importantly the fighters.

Not only do the injured fighters lose out on a chance to make money come fight night, but many times they have to foot the medical bills to get back on their feet.

Luckily for the fighters, the UFC has just recently set up an insurance policy to take effect in June that will insure fighters for up to $50,000 for injuries outside of the Octagon.

All this to say, is it a surprise that the UFC has been losing a few main and co-main events here and there? Absolutely not, the UFC is putting on more shows than ever since the passing of UFC 100 and the more events being put on, the more chances that injuries and illness put them in Jeopardy.

This isn’t the first bad streak the UFC has had to go through in terms of losing fights due to fighters being forced to pull out.

Similar to how a lot of main events are falling by the way side after the UFC’s biggest event ever, UFC 129: St-Pierre vs. Shields, the same thing happened after what was probably the company’s second biggest event in history—UFC 100.

In the nine events following UFC 100, only one had a title fight headlining the card and four of the five UFC champions at the time were out nursing injuries.

Things eventually got back on track and in the spring and summer of 2010 the UFC was able to put on a string of stacked cards that had fans everywhere watering at the mouth.

The thing is when a lot of guys get injured and have to come back, it creates a log jam and often times what ends up happening is a slew of great fights once those guys start getting back into the fold.

In any case, mixed martial arts is a combat sport and it is often said that training is just as hard if not harder than the actual fight. So it doesn’t come as a surprise that guys get injured and are forced to sit out. The problem is, if fights start getting called off too often it begs the question: is the UFC overextending their roster?

A case could have been made that the UFC was overextending it’s roster post UFC 100, but that probably isn’t the case anymore as the UFC has taken measure to bulk up their roster over the last year and a half.

When the UFC absorbed the WEC in late 2010 it resulted in the additions of the the featherweight and bantamweight divisions to the promotion and with that two more titles to help sell their cards.

When Jon Fitch and BJ Penn were forced to pull out of UFC 132 with injury, we saw the pay-off of having the new divisions as Dominick Cruz vs. Urijah Faber for the bantamweight title should have no problem carrying the card.

Not a company to sit back on its laurels, Zuffa LLC, the parent company of the UFC, went out and purchased Strikeforce, one of the few remaining competitors to the MMA giant earlier this year.

With the purchase of Strikeforce Zuffa now owns the rights to a host of new fighters across the lightweight to heavyweight divisions.

Dana White has gone on the record stating that it remains “business as usual” over at Strikeforce and contracts will be honored. That being said, as soon as the UFC can start pulling from Strikeforce’s roster they will be able to further ensure that cards affected by injury or illness will be much easier to repair.

Of course, sometimes, it is just a case of bad timing and not much can be done to salvage the card. Injuries far out from fight night are easier to salvage then last minute pull outs, which most definitely was the case for UFC 130 as both Edgar and Maynard were forced to pull out just three weeks before the fight.

Leon Horne has been contributing to Bleacher Report for three years now. He focuses mainly on mixed martial arts, but he has also written about tennis, football and hockey. Just send him a message if you want to talk sports or discuss any opportunities. You can follow him on Twitter for updates:

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Jon Jones Says He’s Open to Fighting Machida or Rampage In the Interim if He Has to Wait for Bout With Rashad

(Video courtesy of YouTube/MMACanada)

When news got out last week that the hand injury that forced Jon Jones out of his planned UFC 133 meeting with disgruntled former teammate Rashad Evans did not require surgery, and that the UFC light heavyweight champ’s manager Malki Kawa intimated that his client was likely to fight another opponent before facing Rashad, our first thought was, “Damn, it looks like Bones is just doing whatever he can to screw Rashad out of his shot.”

But then we said, “Nah, it must just be a coincidence,” when we heard Jones say they consulted with three doctors before deciding to forgo surgery and that, not to worry, he will still face Rashad somewhere down the road.

Well, it’s looking like our first inclination may have been correct.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/MMACanada)

Well, it’s looking like our first inclination may have been correct.

In the video above Jones, who once said he would fake an injury to get out of fighting a teammate, stated that there’s plenty of time for him to fight Rashad, but before the fight happens he may take a bout with Quinton Jackson or Lyoto Machida to keep active, which is curious since neither fighter necessarily deserves the a title shot at the moment.

Machida is 1-2 in his last three bouts and the win he did get was against Randy Couture, who retired following the bout. Rampage has fared slightly better in his recent bouts especially in his razor close decision win over Machida at UFC 123 in November, but a win over a UFC castaway like Keith Jardine and a middleweight like Wanderlei Silva doesn’t make you a contender. Moving on.

You may recall the furor that erupted last week when Kawa said that there wasn’t enough time for Jones to prepare to step in for his UFC 133 replacement Phil Davis to fight Rashad because he would need eight weeks for such an important camp. The day Kawa tweeted the message, was exactly eight weeks out from the bout. The problem is, Jones is still in a brace and although he was told by doctors that he didn’t require surgery for the injury, he was not given medical clearance to fight. There’s a big difference between the two.

UFC 133: Phil Davis Doesn’t Plan on Losing to Rashad Evans

During the past few months, many of the UFC’s top fighters have been plagued by injuries, the latest being light heavyweight champion and Greg Jackson prodigy, Jon Jones. The highly anticipated bout between two former friends, Rashad Evans and Jo…

During the past few months, many of the UFC’s top fighters have been plagued by injuries, the latest being light heavyweight champion and Greg Jackson prodigy, Jon Jones.

The highly anticipated bout between two former friends, Rashad Evans and Jon Jones, has been postponed due to Jones getting injured during training when he tore a ligament in his right hand.

Evans’ last scheduled bout with then-champion Mauricio “Shogun” Rua was also postponed when Rua was injured during training. Evans chose to wait for Rua to heal and for his shot at regaining the light UFC heavyweight title, a decision that he has come to regret.

This time, while not a title shot, Evans will not be waiting on his opponent as the undefeated and very hungry, Phil “Mr. Wonderful” Davis steps up to replace the champion in what could be a three-round war between two of the sport’s best wrestlers.

While Evans and Jones continue their newfound grudge via Twitter, Davis is focused on only one thing: his fight with Evans at UFC 133.

Stepping up and seizing the opportunity is nothing new to Davis. He stepped up to replace Tito Ortiz in his last fight against former PRIDE fighter, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira also known as, “Little Nog”. Davis beat Nogueria by unanimous decision, controlling him with his superior wrestling.

According to Eric Fontanez at MMA Weekly, Davis is preparing for a battle against an opponent of equal, if not better wrestling skills.

“He’s someone I should definitely be concerned about with my skill set…I expect a pretty good fight,” Davis said.

“I invite the opportunity to face someone of his level of wrestling and I think I’ll be fine.”

Regardless of Evans’ wrestling ability, Davis plans on controlling the fight.

“I like to think I’m going to be the one controlling the pace of any fight,” he said. “And I don’t think this will be any different.

“I will take this fight wherever it wants to go.”

Even though Davis is undefeated, he will be facing an experienced former champion with only one loss on his record and who has been in deep water before.

Considering each of these great athletes wrestling experience, this fight could turn out to be a high-paced wrestling match. Regardless, Davis is facing the biggest test and challenge of his career.

For Davis, it’s just another opportunity, one that leads to a light heavyweight title shot and one he doesn’t plan on losing.

“Losing was never something I planned on doing.”

Davis told MMA Heat’s Karyn Bryant that it makes no difference to him who he fights.

“To me it’s not about fighting people. I don’t care if you can beat this guy or that guy. I want to have the belt.”

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