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Jon Jones Says Being Called "Cocky" Is the "Biggest Blow" to Him as a Fighter

Jon Jones is widely considered the future of mixed martial arts.The 24-year-old’s dominant performances over former champions like Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson has garnered him a lot of success in a short period of time. But for …

Jon Jones is widely considered the future of mixed martial arts.

The 24-year-old’s dominant performances over former champions like Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson has garnered him a lot of success in a short period of time. But for the amount of praise he receives from the media, Jones gets even more criticism from the fans.

In a feature story on MensJournal.com, Jones said he is aware of his role as UFC light heavyweight champion and he understands it will bring forth its fair share of criticism.

But like some of the UFC’s past stars in Chuck Liddell or Brock Lesnar, who brought a lot of success to the company with their style and charisma, Jones is attempting to do the same, regardless of how he is perceived.

“Sometimes I look back, and I want to be rude to people who didn’t believe in me. But that’s not what I do,” Jones said.

Even some of Jones’ colleagues have taken a disliking to the champion’s good-guy image, particularly Rashad Evans, a former training partner of “Bones” and the next challenger to the light heavyweight championship. The two 205-pound contenders will meet in the main event at UFC 145.

Evans shares the fans’ opinion and believes Jones’ image is nothing but a facade, and has continuously called him out for being arrogant or cocky. But Jones said he is the furthest thing from it.

“My road wasn’t easy, by any means. That’s why when people call me cocky, it’s, like, the biggest blow I can get. It’s like, ‘It’s not me! I’m sorry I’m coming across that way,” he said.

But whether he is cheered or booed by the fans in attendance, Jones is grateful for where he is at in his career and accepts the fact that his job is to win fights, not popularity contests.

“I can’t please everyone,” he said. “Some people are going to love you, and some are going to hate you, no matter what you do.”

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UFC: Analyzing the Layoff

The UFC is currently taking a breather since the company will not be putting on any PPV or major TV events for quite some time. We just got through a great card of UFC on FX 2, which took place on March 3, but it will be not until April 14 to witness another card. The UFC will return with UFC on Fuel TV 2, where Alexander Gustafsson will face the returning Thiago Silva.

While stacked with well-known fighters, especially Brian Stann, the card is not the strongest. It won’t be until April 21 that fans will have another PPV event to watch. With almost six weeks of layoff, the UFC will focus on its reality show, “The Ultimate Fighter,” which starts on March 9.

Some might argue if this layoff is a welcomed or not, and most of it is probably subjective. Having seven different events, with three of them PPV already this year, the UFC already saturated the first quarter of 2012. From January to present-day March in 2011, the UFC put on five events. Before that it stayed around three, and before 2004, there was essentially only one.

The UFC has already stated this will be the most event-filled year to date, and with their fresh partnership with FOX, it seems they will be delivering in full force. Some might argue this hiatus is a great thing, giving the viewers at home a little time for their wallets to cool off. They wouldn’t argue about too many fights, but too many $45-$55 PPV’s are hard on anyone these days.

The only bad thing about this layoff is the less exposure, of course, combined with a general lull feeling in the MMA world. Media sites will have a lot of filler articles during this time about things like the good and bad of the layoff and analyzing it.

What a silly topic! But still, some will be interested to read about it, since most fans are probably already feeling like they are going through withdrawal.

This feeling has come as a double-edged sword. The UFC and ZUFFA in general have put out a continuously growing number of events, and having seven already by March 3^rd, it just feels natural that one would be coming up soon. It has come to a point where people can assume there is a fight each weekend, and be right most of the time. The Ultimate Fighter is like an IV drip for the time, but major events are what we crave.

It doesn’t help the fact that UFC 144, which was at the end of February, had seven fights on the main card, with five prelims prior. A week later was another 11 fights at UFC on FX 2.

To put this into perspective, fans have watched 73 different bouts since the start of this year.

That’s a little more than a fight per day, and eight matches every week. Years ago when the UFC first started, in order to come close to matching that 73 bouts, it would have taken every bout from UFC 1 to UFC 7. That span was from November of 1993, until September of 1995, instead of less than three months.

This is why when there is a six-week layoff, after nine weeks of what was just mentioned so far, the feeling of discontent is inevitable. While the layoff allows everyone to get caught up and have solid debates without rankings changing every weekend, it hinders the publicity. The UFC is strong enough that this doesn’t negatively affect them in a significant way, and if anything, it will help boost the sales of UFC 145. Fans may have felt anxious for the next PPV, and a championship one like Jones vs. Evans is a welcomed way for people to fork out the cost yet again.

The layoff was partially due to UFC 145 being moved from its original date of March 24, but that too would have put a gap from April 14, until May 5. This break is bittersweet for many and has both good and bad implications as a result. While we all await UFC on Fuel 2 and UFC 145, our attention will at least be stimulated by a newly formatted TUF season, which now comes to us live.

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UFC 145: 7 Reasons Why It Will Be the Most Highly Anticipated Card of the Year

In less than eight weeks time, all roads lead to Atlanta, GA, for the most eagerly awaited and highly anticipated fight card of the year—UFC 145. The event is set to be stacked to the rafters with some of the most combative superlatives residing …

In less than eight weeks time, all roads lead to Atlanta, GA, for the most eagerly awaited and highly anticipated fight card of the year—UFC 145.

The event is set to be stacked to the rafters with some of the most combative superlatives residing in Zuffa-based hierarchy.

And with that in mind, the Philips Arena is geared for an explosive night of edge-of-seat fueled action, where anything could happen.

And here’s why.

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[VIDEO] The Jon Jones Commercial That Aired During Last Weekend’s UFC on FX Event

It is a little known fact that Jon Jones has a stipulation in his UFC contract that forbids him from appearing in any form of promotional media without viciously assaulting someone whilst doing so. That child innocently swinging at the playground? He’s getting the boots put to him. That co-worker complaining about shorter lunches? He’s getting choked the fuck out. Mr. Jones’ newest commercial is no different, but thankfully, no helpless bystanders were injured this time. In fact, the ad is nothing more than a slow-mo recap of his recent win over former UFC Light Heavyweight Champ Lyoto Machida. And it couldn’t be any cooler.

How cool is Jones’ newest commercial, you ask? Well, it has opted to take the Cialis approach to advertising ie. leaving the audience completely in the dark as to what the hell it is actually trying to sell them, because ambiguity is truly for the elite. If not for the “4.21.12″ that flashes briefly at the end of the ad, which we recognize to be the date of his upcoming UFC 145 showdown with long time rival Rashad Evans, this commercial would simply come across as a minute-long hype video for the current champ, which he is clearly in desperate need of. I mean, let’s not look into the fact that the UFC 145 poster doesn’t feature Evans whatsoever, or any other fighters for that matter. Apparently the UFC’s marketing department doesn’t think “Suga” stands much of a chance, so the question is, do any of you?

-J. Jones

UFC 145 Promo: Watch Jon Jones Guillotine Choke Lyoto Machida

The Zuffa brass have released a UFC 145 promo which features amazing material of Jon Jones submitting Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida via guillotine choke at UFC 140. In one of the most anticipated events of 2012, “Bones” Jones is sl…

The Zuffa brass have released a UFC 145 promo which features amazing material of Jon Jones submitting Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida via guillotine choke at UFC 140.

In one of the most anticipated events of 2012, “Bones” Jones is slated to defend his light heavyweight title for the third time against friend-turned-foe and former training partner, Rashad Evans (17-1-1 MMA, 12-1-1 UFC).

Evans, who recently secured the top spot to contest the championship by winning a unanimous decision against Phil “Mr. Wonderful” Davis at UFC on FOX 2, has been at loggerheads with Jones, ever since the latter made it known that if he ever became champ, he’d be willing to fight Evans on the say-so of UFC president Dana White.

At 23, Jones (15-1 MMA, 9-1 UFC) became the youngest 205-pounder in the history of the organization when he dethroned Pride legend Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in March of 2011.

The same year he followed that up with two successful title defenses against Quinton “Rampage” Jackson (rear-naked choke) and Machida.

UFC 145 is scheduled for April 21, 2012, at the Philips Arena in Atlanta, Ga.

Video courtesy of Bloodyelbow.com.

For additional information, follow Nedu Obi on Twitter.

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UFC 145: Does Rashad Evans Have a Legitimate Shot at Defeating Jon Jones?

After a blistering UFC schedule that saw seven events in less than two months, the organization is taking a bit of a break for the month of March, but when it returns to PPV in April it’ll be presenting one of the most anticipated bouts of the ye…

The rivalry between Jon Jones and Rashad Evans runs deep, dating back to early 2011 when Jones replaced his injured teammate Evans in a UFC title fight against Shogun Rua.

When Jones conceded he wasn’t against fighting Evans in the future, their relationship soon turned sour, and it wasn’t long after before a war of words resulted in Evans leaving Greg Jackson’s camp, a place he had trained for more than five years.

Now, after countless attempts to make the fight broke down due to injuries for both fighters, they are finally set to fight on April 21 in Atlanta in the UFC 145 main event.

Since winning the title from Rua in that UFC 128 bout, Jones has looked unstoppable, taking out former champions Rampage Jackson and Lyoto Machida with relative ease and staking his claim as one of the top pound for pound players on the planet.

But since the day Jones won his title the biggest threat for his belt in most fans’ minds has been Rashad Evans, who has taken the inability to get a fight with Jones in stride and has won two bouts over Tito Ortiz and Phil Davis while waiting for his chance.

If this fight had been made as soon as Jones had won the belt, like many had expected it to be, the general public would be giving Evans a decent shot at winning, but after seeing Jones run through three champions like they were gatekeepers at best, suddenly Evans is being given about as much of a shot at beating Jones as I would.

To put it mildly, this is insane.

Evans is still one of the best fighters in the world—he’s beaten nearly every opponent ever put in front of him, and he has an advantage that none of Jones’ previous opponents have had in that he’s trained with Jones.

Both Rampage and Machida had a hard time trying to deal with Jones’ reach and size advantage, something Evans has dealt with in training and will be able to game plan against far better than anyone else has.

Throw in Evans’ wrestling ability, which he showed off impressively against Phil Davis, who is a collegiate wrestling champion, and Jones is going to have a serious test in front of him when the bell rings in April.

Jon Jones is an amazing athlete and a fantastic fighter, but calling him unbeatable is a disservice to Evans and is almost comical. This is MMA, where upsets happen quite often and, to be fair, if Evans is able to take out “Bones” it won’t be anywhere near the biggest upset the MMA community has seen.

This doesn’t come down to a punches chance, or even Evans getting lucky and Jones having an off night.

Evans has the skills to beat Jones, and whether or not he does, he should at least be granted the respect by fans to not count him out before the bout even starts.

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