Win for Jones might silence mouthy rival
Life has been a crash course for Jon Jones the last 30 months.
The 30-year-old former UFC light-heavyweight champion re-emerges Saturday night at Honda Center against champion Daniel Cormier at UFC 214. Jones said the journey has toughened him, creating a better version of the organization’s former pound-for-pound No. 1 fighter.
“I’ve come to expect more out of myself — as a citizen, as a man, as an athlete — to reach a better place, a place I’ve never been,” he said. “I’m just loaded with good energy right now and I’m excited to take all this with me into the octagon.”
Waiting for him will be a man who is most eager to remind Jones of his failings.
Cormier, 38, has continually been in Jones’ face, contributing to their fight at a 2014 news conference and jabbing the former champion over each of the slips during Jones’ extended fall from grace.
Jones submitted a positive cocaine test days before his unanimous-decision victory over Cormier on Jan. 3, 2015. Weeks later, Jones injured a pregnant woman in a car crash before scurrying from his vehicle with a wad of cash, triggering a brief jailing and the stripping of his belt.
Then came Jones’ fight week positive test in July 2016 for a banned performance-enhancing substance. It cost Cormier an estimated $1 million in purse money for a replacement fight, and it left Jones suspended for one year.
Cormier, who has referred to Jones as a “junkie” for months, was asked about his use of that word Wednesday at an L.A. Live news conference, during which he alleged that Jones engaged in performance-enhancing drug use before the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency began Olympic-style testing around the time of Jones’ 2015 troubles. Jones denies that. “You’ve got to give your past attention, but you’ve got to forgive yourself, acknowledge what you did wrong and be a man, taking responsibility,” Jones said. “You can’t not fly anymore because of the things you’ve been through. You’ve got to believe in a brighter future, that better version of yourself.”
While Jones was training for Cormier, Jones’ mother, Camille, died of complications from diabetes.
“Unfortunately,” Jones said, “life catches some people and they can never rebound from it. They get stuck in that time and almost convince themselves that’s who they are, that this is their life.
“Life is supposed to be about love and good times, and so I’ve forgiven myself after paying the consequences of my bad decisions, and I’m ready to move forward and allow my life to be a light to others that it’s never over, even for a person like me, who has lost a tremendous amount of respect among my peers, my fans, my friends and family.”
Jones’ universal talents were impressive even when he seized the massive audience’s attention on the undercard of the landmark UFC 100 in 2009.
He became the organization’s youngest-ever champion at 23, then successfully defended his belt eight times before his unraveling.
His recent training clips from Albuquerque are impressive, showing a powerfully strong puncher capable of delivering damaging knees and kicks.
While Cormier is a former Olympic wrestler, Jones too is a standout in that discipline.
“A champion without his belt is like a knight without his sword,” Jones said. “I’ve got to have it.”
Jones said he’s tempted by a future that could include a spectacle heavyweight fight against former champion and WWE performer Brock Lesnar, and even a move to take on the division’s current champion, Stipe Miocic.
First, he has to beat Cormier, the vocal embodiment of the skeletons in his closet.
“It’s absolutely important” to win, Jones said. “It’s hard enough to fight your past. But when you constantly have someone else spending so much time attacking your personal life — how weak you were — that’s real life.
“Some people want to hold you under water and never let you breathe.
“There is symbolism in this fight, because D.C., to me, represents me climbing to the surface, me getting out of that drowning situation … reaching the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Cormier so fervently emphasizes how differently each fighter has lived his life, Jones said, “because he knows my skills in the octagon are unmatched.
“People don’t want to hear he deserves to be the champion. People want to see these two guys fight — no matter how imperfect the other one is — and that’s why I’m here: to provide for my family and do what I love by competing in martial arts.”