Jon Jones, suspended in 2016 after USADA flagged trace estrogen blockers from a tainted "Cialispil" pill, reflects on his career’s detours—from blacking out pre-fights to a 7-month powerlifting binge post-car accident—while embracing sobriety and mental discipline. Now training under five-time world champ Roberto Alucar (Tusa) for submission-only grappling against Dan Henderson in December, he prioritizes endurance over ego-driven sparring, dismissing extreme weight cuts like McGregor’s. Retiring by "beating Rogan" in a hypothetical match, Jones shifts focus to jiu-jitsu mastery, proving adversity hasn’t dimmed his ambition or growth. [Automatically generated summary]
So there's a surgery that you can do where I guess they take my semen and they take out all the girl, like all the girl hormones or whatever, chromosomes, inject it into the wife, gives you like a 90-something percent chance of getting a little boy.
Wouldn't you think in some way, now I'm not really too much of a spiritual, well, I wouldn't say I'm spiritual, but I don't believe in, I don't, how do I phrase this?
Would you worry that you would anger the gods by trying to fuck with DNA? That's so funny.
So I actually thought that, you know, because obviously I'm a religious guy, I thought that my theory has always been God is going to give me a son when I am mature enough to raise a man, to teach a man how to be a man.
So that was always my thing, and I felt like God was waiting for me to get married before giving me and my fiancé this boy.
Well, they didn't have the foresight when they were writing the Bible to take out genetic diversity testing or whatever the fuck they're doing.
What would they be doing?
Like, some sort of DNA... Chromosomal jazz.
I don't know what they're doing.
I don't know what the process is, but yeah.
Well, people, I mean, wouldn't you say personally that people who are religious, almost all of them sort of pick and choose what they decide to agree with and not agree with?
Do you think, when we were talking about, like, um...
Wanting to wait until or that God would give you this opportunity when you are more mature when you're mature enough to raise a man Do you do you think about that like man?
Why do I have to wait?
Like why am I not mature enough right now?
Like if I can internalize that and if I can understand that like what is the difference between me in the future When I am mature enough to have a man and me right now like why why have I not learned enough lessons?
I I feel like I'm learning lessons every year, every month, every day.
I feel like I'm growing as a person, as a man, but I know about some demons that I still struggle with, and I feel as if when I'm over those, I'll feel ready to be able to raise a man and teach a man how to be a proper man.
It was like a green light that said that I could turn left, but you're supposed to yield for the right-of-way, right?
To turn left.
The person came through, and I just assumed it was my green light to go, obviously being not completely clear-headed, and I ended up running into a car.
So I literally, I opened my car door, I'd like take two steps away from the car, and then I'd go back to the car, and I'd like search the car, because I had it in my cup holder.
And when I hit, the bowl fell somewhere, who knows where it flew to.
But I knew...
I knew, shit, like, if I can't find that bull, that's going to get me in trouble, just having a bull in my car.
So I looked for, like, two seconds, couldn't find the bull, and I just took off running.
Well, I I me and my mom have a great relationship.
I'm a mama's boy And then I'm the father of four daughters, so You know if anything my my my respect for for women is is I have tremendous respect for a woman and And I tried to, like, obviously, being a father, like, I tried to...
I just felt like a monster.
I felt like a monster.
You know what I mean?
I just felt terrible.
I felt really bad.
I was mainly just concerned with this woman's health and safety.
And I'm really glad that she ended up being okay.
I felt really bad.
I was just like, dude, even in the public's eyes, like, you just heard a pregnant woman.
Like, doesn't really get worse than that.
But, yeah, I had no clue.
I had no clue that it was even a woman that I hit.
Yeah, because if someone comes up to me and says, hey man, you've been ripping off old ladies and stealing money from the church, I'd be like, what the fuck are you talking about?
It doesn't make any sense.
It's not true at all.
So if someone says something to you that's rude, that's not true, it doesn't have any impact on you.
But when someone says something to you that's rude but true, then you have to rationalize.
Then you have to go, well, what about you, man?
What's going on with your life?
Maybe you're into some dark shit, you know?
That's a bad road.
And it's a defensive road.
And as a fighter, it's a natural instinct.
Somebody hits you, you want to hit them back.
If somebody attacks you, you go, yeah, well what about your weaknesses?
You want to try to search them out.
And I'm sure a lot of people go through that when they read social media and they see these anonymous eggs on Twitter saying mean shit to you.
You start thinking, I want to know who this fucking guy is and what's going on in his fucking life.
Well, you know, like I said, I do respectfully take it.
Like, I've never had someone say, hey, you know, get it together, John.
And then I sit there and be like, oh, you know, I always, I always, you know, you know, thank you so much for caring.
Thank you so much for, you know, rooting for me still.
And I really appreciate it.
And I'm working at it.
And I seriously have been working on my personal life tremendously.
And as of right now, I feel, I feel amazing.
I feel better now today than I did when I was, Beating everybody's ass and you know sponsored by the world and like I literally feel better today because I I feel like I've conquered a lot of demons in my personal life.
More at peace you know like not worried about social media all the time like that that has brought a lot of peace to me not worried about what people are saying not even worrying about what's going on in the UFC like who has the belt or or You know Just being Jonathan Jones and having my group of friends across the country who genuinely love me,
focusing on my kids every day, you know, taking my girls to cheerleading practice, picking them up from school, dropping them off at school.
Yeah, well, it's like the financial thing is beautiful and everything like that.
It's wonderful that you're set for life and you can just kick back and your children will be taken care of and your wife will be taken care of.
That's all beautiful.
But you have a responsibility of greatness.
There's very few people that ever get to the position that you not just were in when you won the title, when you were the youngest ever UFC light heavyweight champion.
Not just that.
The youngest ever UFC champion.
Not just that.
There's also a responsibility that comes with potential.
I'm not sure if I've ever shared this with anyone else before, but I had this crazy thing that I would do.
Where I would party one week before every fight.
And I did it throughout my whole career.
And this was stupid, but it was this mental crutch that I had.
I literally would, one week before every fight, I would go out and I would get blacked out, wasted.
And my logic was, if this guy were to beat me somehow, I can look myself in the mirror and say that, well, I lost because I got hammered the week before the fight.
And then you're fighting a guy who'd been pretty active and fought some good guys, had a great victory over Shogun, and looked real good in a lot of his fights, and was an up-and-comer.
I study everybody extensively, and then I come up with their patterns.
I figure out the way they flinch.
I figure out their first favorite punch, their second favorite punch, their third, their favorite combinations, their setups to their takedowns, when they clinch, what side their head's going to be on.
Literally everything.
I know everything about every opponent.
What side they're going to shoot, whether it's going to be head inside, head outside.
What am I going to do about that, you know?
I figure out everything, why they shoot, what area of the cage they like to shoot, everything.
And with Ovin St. Preux, he doesn't know what he's going to do.
He's so...
Unorthodox.
Unorthodox.
You know, and he gets these random knockouts from these weird angles, and he just winks stuff, and he almost closes his eyes, and the next thing you know, he's knocked somebody out, you know.
So the scary thing about him was he's so unpredictable.
And I had a lot on the line.
So I just said, you know what?
This guy, he's in a shell pretty much the whole fight.
He was defensive the whole fight.
And I just thought I'd coast through the fight and not really risk anything.
Which I felt like I let myself down because normally I would just...
I mean, normally when you get someone like that, you just, you know, take them out.
You know, I should have just been able to take them out.
But I was content with...
Winning.
And I think that was one of the first fights where I actually just wanted to get the win, get my money, go back to my actual goal, which was DC, instead of wanting to finish this guy like normal.
So I had to really question myself on why...
Why I was like that, why I was content with coasting.
Well, that was a fight where you, that had the most pressure on you, in any fight you've had before, as far as, like, people wanting to see how you respond to the adversity outside of the octagon.
They work with a Philadelphia Eagle and a lot of powerlifters, yeah.
But these guys, to their credit, they were really humble and they listened and they quickly adjusted what we were doing every day to make it more about endurance and not about maintaining muscle or strength and things like that.
And I felt like I got in really good shape with these guys.
And now we're at a place, because I'm still working with these same guys, now we're at a place where We realize the importance of endurance and we're going to start way farther out.
And like I said, these guys are humble enough to do what I need them to do is put me through some strenuous workouts that I think are a great idea to make sure my endurance is in the right place.
So other than the fact that you did so much strength and conditioning or so much powerlifting, what else, like, what did you feel when you got into the Octagon when you fought over in St. Preux?
Did you feel stronger?
Did you feel like your endurance had been diminished slightly because of all this powerlifting?
The go-to moves that I used to do weren't quite there.
I would watch some of my old training practices or my old fights, and I'm like, man, I'm not doing this stuff that I was doing before.
So I was really nervous going into...
I knew that I was ready to beat D.C., Because I was so well-rehearsed and the drills and everything were so well-rehearsed to beat DC. But as far as going in the fight with Ovin St. Pru, I just felt like my creativity was kind of gone.
My ability to improvise wasn't quite there.
And that was just from taking off so much time from martial arts.
So in the fight with Ovin St. Pru, I felt really strong.
I felt really, really strong.
Like picking him up against the cage and taking him down felt effortless.
But on the bright side, and not that this is a good thing to injure someone, but I did break or fracture his arm with a kick, and that's something that I've never done before.
So that showed me that definitely came, that has to be connected to just developing so much power in my hips and in my legs.
No, I have pretty good trainers, and they teach me the right way to do things, but they also allow me to be out of position a lot of times, too, because a lot of times people focus on the perfect form at everything, but when you lift a real big weight, you're not always going to be in the perfect form.
So they almost allow me to be out of position sometimes or not in the perfect form and still power through positions.
Well, that's the big theory behind functional strength, right?
That's why people like doing things like power cleans and presses because it's such an awkward thing to do with the weight and you're in weird movements and you're doing things with your whole body.
When you're suspended, because this is a question that I've always wanted to know, like if you're suspended for a PED or something along those lines, aren't you not supposed to train with other fighters that are in the UFC or is that bullshit?
When I decided that I was going to be completely sober, I lost a lot of friends.
And it was crazy because my phone used to blow up on Friday nights because everybody knew that John was going to be buying everything that people needed.
But, I mean, it's way better than just getting turned up.
Right, right.
So it's funny because I've developed this way of just having so much fun, completely sober, where a lot of times when I'm leaving a place, someone will be like, hey, how are you getting home?
I think stopping pot was really tough because I literally didn't associate with too many people who didn't smoke.
That's the way I kind of like a lot of people on my own team.
I didn't hang out with them because I was kind of one of the hardest working guys on the team but a little bit of a bad boy and none of my teammates were really...
A lot of my friends were people who weren't martial arts, had anything to do with martial arts, and I would always kind of associate with just party people, people who like to have fun.
So I realized once I quit smoking that I really didn't know too many people who didn't smoke.
So I had to kind of start...
Hanging out with people who didn't smoke, which I kind of found, I thought was just like...
Well, it sounds to me that you've done an audit of your life and you've looked at all the issues that you're dealing with and you've decided to not engage in them anymore.
Do you write things down?
Do you write goals down or things that you demand of yourself?
Now, when you look at the future and you see yourself from here on out, do you feel like from now on, from my time on this earth, no more drinking, no more pot, no more partying?
Just because I... Coming out of high school, I started drinking in high school, and I always felt like I needed alcohol to be cool or to put myself in certain situations, to conquer anxiety or whatever, to be a part of the crowd and to have fun.
And so I got to a point where I couldn't just go out and have a drink.
I would always get to the point where everyone's getting crazy and things are getting wild, you know?
And I never really had the opportunity to develop a healthy relationship with it.
It just went from high school to college when you party even more to being famous and being able to afford to buy everybody drinks every night.
So my relationship with alcohol, it became unhealthy and I never went through a period of time where I had a healthy, mature, responsible relationship with it.
Now being sober for so long, I know that I can Have one drink and feel a little bit of a buzz and catch an Uber home or whatnot.
Or I know that I can go out and not have a drink at all and be the life of the party.
I know that I can go out and not have a drink at all and approach someone and talk to someone with zero anxiety or feeling like, You know, I can sit amongst a group of drunk people and know that I'm cool in my own skin just the way that I am.
And that's something I never really had the opportunity to experience until now.
And so now I feel like I'm in a mature enough place where if I wanted to have a drink in the future to celebrate a victory or something like that, or a glass of wine at home with my fiancé, I know that I could do that now.
So I just, my relationship with it has completely changed.
And I believe that I could drink in the future and not run into some of the wild, you know, crashing a Bentley into a pole.
I wasn't waking up and I didn't need alcohol, but I always said to myself, I don't have a problem with alcohol, but then when you run into a pregnant woman, you have a problem with alcohol.
The day that something affects you, the first GWI, you know, it's a problem.
Something was causing you to not think straight, and it was your actions and what you chose to take into your body, and then you said, all right, I'm done with that.
When you're dealing with the amount of stress and just the amount of pressure is probably a better word of being, you know, one of the great fighters of all time.
I mean, you're without a doubt one of the best fighters that's ever fought in MMA. And there's so many eyes on you.
And there's so much pressure, and there's so much money involved, and accolades, and all these different things.
You know, hey John, we've got a business meeting for you.
Hey John, this company wants to talk to you about doing this.
And hey John, there's just so much coming your way.
Do you feel like it's almost like you had set yourself up in a position where you needed some escape?
You needed an escape valve.
And that's what you had found through the drinking.
That's what you had found through the pot.
You had found these ways where you could not be Jon Jones for a while.
You could be this blacked out dude at a bar.
All of a sudden you feel normal.
As normal as you can feel by being a 20-whatever-year-old millionaire fucking throwing shots around in Albuquerque.
You found a valve to release you from some of the intense pressure of being one of the baddest motherfuckers on the planet.
I don't really seek hanging out with other celebrities.
All my friends are just normal, average Joe Geisen.
Back when I used to party, I used to feel like that was me just not being Jon Bones Jones and just being one of the guys, like, just doing the wild shit that everybody does.
And then when something bad happens, it's like you're quickly reminded that millions of people around the world know exactly who you are.
But it's a two-edged sword, too, because the people that get completely lost in the idea that they are this unique and special person, you eliminate yourself from all those other folks, and you separate yourself, and then it's extremely hard to relate.
There's a lot of celebrities that go into a shell, and everywhere they go, they have security that takes them places, and they get delusional.
They have a completely distorted perception of how people interact with them, because they don't just go hang with people.
I meet a lot of people and people say, man, you don't act famous.
And I'm just like, oh, I don't know.
I really have a lot of pride in just doing normal shit, like going to places that most people, even fighters in Albuquerque, don't go, just being amongst the people.
And I think a big part of me long to just kind of just be not famous sometimes.
Now my question, the reason why I asked you that is, how do you plan on handling that now?
Because if you're not going to be drinking, and you're not going to be smoking pot, and you're going to...
I mean, right now you're living life as just John Jones, the person, and happy with your family, and happy with your life, and just working out and having a good time doing jujitsu and all that stuff, but eventually...
Everything's going to ramp back up again.
Media obligations are going to ramp back up again.
All these things are going to happen and the pressure's going to be back on you again.
What are you going to use as that escape valve then?
Bernard Hopkins, one of the greatest boxers of all time for sure, and he'll fight December 17th for his last fight at 51 years old because he's a goddamn defensive wizard.
He still does commentary for HBO, still sharp as a tack.
But Bernard Hopkins went to jail and he decided when he went to jail, when he was a young man, he decided that from that point on he was going to be disciplined and that there's no more bullshit in his life.
No more robbery or assault or any of the shit that got him into the position where he's in and then he was going to dedicate his life to being a world champion boxer.
And from that point on he became one of the most disciplined boxers ever.
Never ate bad food, never drank, never did anything stupid, always was in shape.
And we'll go down in history as one of the all-time greats.
Guaranteed shoe-in Hall of Famer.
And I feel like Bernard Hopkins was created by the darkest moment of him being arrested and him doing time in jail.
And when he came out of that jail, one of the first things that one of the corrections officers said to him was, you'll be back.
And he he used that as fuel and he knew that like there's no fucking way I'm gonna look at that dude again.
There's no way there's no way he's right.
There's no way and Ultimately Bernard Hopkins escaped his demons by facing them by being in hell by being in hell I think he was in jail for I forget how many years but Just enough, just enough to cement in his eyes, to harden him to the fact that what he needed was discipline and control over his own destiny.
And I think that for a guy like you, you can take all those dark moments that you've experienced over this, and fuck, man, think about it, man, you got away pretty light.
That girl could have died, you know, horrible things could have happened while you were drunk driving when you slammed into that Bentley into the tree, all the All these terrible things could have gone wrong that you kind of got away with.
Boy, if you wanted to think that someone's looking out for you, you've got all the evidence in the world that points to someone actually looking out for you.
The reason I put that up is because I know that right now I'm in a position to do some magnificent and extraordinary things.
I know that because I've made so many mistakes, I make the perfect role model.
I make the perfect person to still be able to inspire millions of people.
There's very few people who are perfect and flawless and just that clean cut, never did anything wrong athlete.
Way more people who are like me who have struggled with drugs or just being an idiot or just doing wild shit.
Way more people who have let their parents down, let their families down, let their friends down, let themselves down.
And because I made so many mistakes on such a public, you know, such a big scale and so public, I feel like all the great things that I do from here on out are going to be that much greater.
Because of where I came from to do it.
I feel like my best is yet to come.
I feel like I'm in a position to really touch a lot of people and inspire a lot of people because of where I came from.
There's nothing else that I really need out of this thing.
I've literally been there and done that already.
I feel like, I just feel like, ultimately, I've already gotten so much out of this sport, and what I need to do is to truly get something.
What I really need is to know that I'm changing lives.
Like, that motivates me more than anything else right now.
The story, the legacy.
And...
So the reason why I put that laughing meme up is because I'm laughing at my pain and my struggles right now.
I'm laughing at what I'm going through right now because I know my future is just so incredibly bright and I know the impact that I have.
I know what I can do and what I'm going to do.
Right now I'm in a waiting period where I have to wait before I can show the world what I'm actually capable of, what I can be and what I'm going to do for someone else one day.
And it's also laughing at, like, people who actually think that I'm out, down and out.
Like, people who actually think that my story is over.
Or, you know, it's just like, I'm just laughing at it all because what I've done is, like, I've seen some athletes come back from way worse stuff.
Rape charges and murder and attempted murder and all this type of crazy shit.
If anything I've done, I've partied too much and I've done a lot of stupid stuff from being a party boy.
I did everything that I could to be back in the position to win that belt back.
I was getting ready to just show this triumphant, amazing story of someone who just made it through a hit-and-run situation and had everything taken from him and got it all back.
And then...
I'm sorry.
I'm thinking about so many things at once when I'm having a...
I've taken, like, Mel Enhancement before, and for people who haven't taken it, you literally, you know, you go from being like that to just, it puts the twist at the end of a punch.
No, I had a teammate basically tell me, hey, he was talking about how his girlfriend's a pharmacist and he's capable of getting all this stuff and all that type of stuff.
And I was like, well, I don't do drugs or anything like that.
The supplement industry has a giant issue with the people that mix the stuff.
Like, if you have a vat, and you're mixing up whatever creatine or something like that, and right before, I mean, if this is done in some country or some place that doesn't have excellent standards, it's not scrupulous, You could have been scooping up steroids in the batch before that, and you just throw the creatine in it, and some of it gets contaminated if they don't clean it.
Calm myself down, and I instantly started thinking about the weight of the world literally on my back.
I knew that I wasn't going to be fighting a few hours before everyone else knew, the public knew, and I could already start hearing everything.
Even my own coaches have been looking at me like, Just their hearts were on the floor.
I had done so much to get back to fighting at UFC 200, getting my life in order, getting the people around me in order, getting my health, my mind, just being in order to beat DC and Literally,
right now, I've done so much of the right things to be back in a good position, and right now, people look at me as if I still don't have my shit together, but the only thing that I did was I took a pill that I thought was going to give me a boner, and literally, it's caused me a lot of heartache and a lot of disappointment and a lot of It just threw me back in here.
No, when USADA came into the sport, I was suspended because of my hit and run.
And so I never had even met anyone who worked for USADA. I'd never been sat down on a USADA seminar, what to do and what not to do and how serious it is and what could happen if you do this.
Only thing I knew is I had to report where I was at.
Like, if I go to LA for the weekend, I gotta let USADA know that I'm in LA because they can drug test me at any time.
That's the only thing I really knew about USADA. I didn't know that doing something that I had done several times before could ultimately lose me a fight.
So, the only difference was I had taken like little gas station pills and I've taken Viagra before.
This teammate gave me something that was Seattle's.
I thought the only thing that it would do was make me bigger and stronger for longer.
That's all I thought was going to be happening.
And then when I find out that I just failed a drug test...
I literally went through my supplements, and I hired a private lab and a lawyer, and we started giving them everything that I took, which isn't really a lot of stuff at all.
Yes, because each pill that we had tested, some of them had more estrogen blockers, some had almost no estrogen blockers, some had small traces, none of the pills were consistent, so it was obvious that, and we tested several different packages, so it was obvious that these pills were probably getting made in the same machine, and there were just traces.
unidentified
Which is enough to show up in your system when you get drug tested.
So I took one that was just contaminated enough and literally I got tested two days later and it was in my system.
So it was obvious that it was a complete accident.
And even if I would have reported the dick pill to USADA, They would have read the label, and the label would have never said that it was an estrogen blocker in there, and I still would have had a dirty...
I feel like in certain circumstances, like there's been several fighters, like Chad Mendez, he has, I believe he has eczema, and he was taking an eczema cream that had some sort of, was it a hormone precursor or a hormone peptide, I believe.
Some sort of hormone peptide, I think, that enhances the use of this cream.
I don't know the full...
I'm obviously not a doctor or a scientist, but there's something about suspending someone for something like that that seems ridiculous.
Even you saw his lawyer, he showed a little bit of remorse.
I could feel that he felt bad about what was happening to me because I think he could really, even the arbitrators, they could tell what had actually happened.
But their problem was, they said, John, it was just negligent.
But even if I would have reported the pill, they would have read the ingredients and they would have never saw that there was a trace of something that wasn't advertised.
I think it's great to protect people from people that are cheating.
I don't think it's great to punish someone for taking something that has a trace amount of something that does them absolutely no benefit whatsoever and clearly...
I'm excited to get to know the new owners of the UFC. I've had a few interactions with Ari before, but obviously I've never dealt with him on a business level.
But I'm excited.
I do miss Lorenzo Fertitta.
I think I had a great relationship with him.
He was always the calm, cool, collective one, the one I could actually leave emotion behind and really have a good conversation with.
It's a new chapter, and there's a lot of who knows.
That's what gets exciting.
And they're obviously very entertainment, business savvy.
And we'll see where it leads to.
When you look at the state of mixed martial arts today, what problems do you see in MMA? Hmm.
Do you see anything that stands out glaringly?
Like, here's some things that I think about.
Weight cutting.
Weight cutting's a giant issue.
When you see all this work that's being put in by USADA to make sure that people aren't taking things to the point where someone like you, who's taking something that's not a performance enhancer, gets suspended for a year, and the idea is that you're supposed to be protecting fighters from someone who's doing something that's dangerous, right?
That's the take behind it, the cheating, and somehow it could cause potential danger or damage to people.
But what about weight cutting, man?
I mean, isn't extreme weight cutting one of the most dangerous things?
Go right to that door, take the eggs in the light, and don't let your publicist talk you out of coming back in here.
She's probably listening.
Interesting.
Very forthcoming with the boner pill talk.
I think that's important.
I mean, if anyone's going to believe him, that's the only way to really get it out there.
I fucking hate weight cutting.
I do.
I had a conversation with Ari Emanuel about it.
I'm going to have a conversation soon with Nowitzki about it.
I just think it's the most unnecessary and dangerous aspect in fighting.
The most important aspect in fighting is fighters being healthy and in shape and competing to the best of their abilities.
And if there's anything that inhibits that, other than not training, it's the dehydration effect of weight cutting.
I think weight cutting is terrible, and now that they can't use IVs, I'm obviously, again, I hate to have to say this again, I'm not a doctor, so I don't know what...
What is the most effective method of rehydrating?
I've talked to doctors and I guess they vary in their opinions because some people say it's orally is the best way through drinking water slowly, but some people say it's not.
Some doctors say no, IV is a far superior method, especially when it comes to rehydrating the brain, which could take as much as 72 hours.
I think it's interesting that in boxing, most of the deaths have come from the lighter weight divisions.
And they attribute that also to weight cutting and dehydration.
So leading up to the Owen St. Pru fight, I took no concussions whatsoever.
And then I've been suspended now for another year, and I've taken no concussions.
So while I feel like a lot of these guys are in this race to get better, I'm getting a lot better.
I'm getting a lot stronger.
My wrestling and jujitsu is getting a lot sharper.
But I've completely...
My brain is feeling great right now.
I haven't been polluting it with shit and I haven't damaged it.
And so I just feel like you got the best fighter in light heavyweight history who's still the youngest guy in the division who hasn't taken any damage whatsoever and is completely regenerating himself.
And I'm going to come back and have this explosive second half of a career.
Now, Jackson's is such a crazy place because it's a hotbed of MMA talent and it's a magnet for talented people to come there to get better because they know they're going to be training with a bunch of animals there.
But I'm hearing now with the opening of the new place that you guys just got so many tough dudes coming there trying to make a name.
So our gym manager, he does have an extensive tryout thing that he does where he puts you through jiu-jitsu, wrestling, and kicking and striking and makes sure you're knowledgeable about the game.
So if you know almost nothing, you're in the amateur classes.
And then there's the pro practices where you literally get guys who aren't very knowledgeable training next to me and Holly Holm, Cowboy Cerrone, and all of us.
So it's a fan experience for sure and it's an experience of a lifetime for a lot of people and I'm happy for a lot of these guys who come in here inspiring martial artists and get to train with me and the rest of us because I can only imagine wanting to, you know, you get to play ball with Lebron James and you just got out of college or you never went to college.
I am happy for them as long as they don't get in my way.
I have a way of not letting this affect my game personally.
I'm a decent judge.
I can read people's character a little bit.
And if I see you for the first time, you are obviously about 260, 205, whatever, 220. And it's all about the way you look at me.
So if you come in the gym and you even look like you have an ounce of a chip on your shoulder, or like an ounce of, holy shit, that's John Jones, I'm getting ready to spar him today, or anything weird that's going on with your eye contact with me, then I'm just not going to mess with you.
So me, the best way you can work with me when you come to Jackson's is come up, introduce yourself, be kind, be polite, be respectful, and show me that you are here to get better, and that you're not here to, you know, even some guys, they come in and ask for a picture their first day here, and I'm just like...
It's like, dude, earn.
How about you come here, work your ass off for a few days, a few weeks, or whatever, and then get to this place where you feel like you're comfortable with an expert picture instead of just being here and being a fan.
Or you'll see that they'll tag you in a picture and say, yeah, just train with the GOAT. And really, we didn't even train together.
You were just in the room.
Little stuff like that.
But I do see the benefits of having so many new people coming in.
I mean, everyone has something to teach.
And you can learn from anybody from any country if you have an open mind enough.
A lot of the guys come in with a great attitude, and they're just really grateful to be there, and they go with a lot of the top dogs, and we can kind of beat them up a little bit because they're the new guy or whatever.
But every once in a while you get that one guy with something to prove, and I really came up with a great way to protect myself from those type of people.
The few times that it has happened, too, I'll let my teammates know I'm gonna match what you're trying to do to me.
So, you know, don't be surprised if I fuck you up with something that's a little bit more than what you would do to a trainer partner if I realize you're trying to hurt me.
Right around 2010, 2011, I went through this huge spiritual thing where I became obsessed with the power of the mind.
I got into it deep, like really deep, just meditation, visualization, and just realizing how powerful our minds actually are, like how we really do paint our world with our thoughts and our level of self-belief.
And so right around 2010, I just took myself to this different mental level where I took myself on being Average Joe, kind of.
Yeah, so I took myself from being very average-minded to actually believing that I was the shit and believing that I could be the shit and that I could be the GOAT and be the greatest and never lose.
I took myself to a different place mentally and a lot of it came from mental practice and meditation and visualization and just seeking knowledge from people who are strong believers.
Les Brown and Tony Robbins and guys like that I just became really obsessed with just learning about the power of the mind.
So I used to meditate.
Now I just kind of, I have a lot of things that stuck with me, a lot of ways of believing that stuck with me that just subconsciously I know who I am, what I'm capable of and how I believe and how powerful my mind actually is.
I'm a firm believer in meditation because I believe that human beings can get caught up, especially someone involved in a very difficult endeavor like you are.
You can get caught up in the momentum of your life and sometimes it's very hard to reset.
It's very hard to separate yourself from it and get a balanced and as much as you can objective perspective.
I think one of the best ways to do that is to take time where you sit and you close your eyes and you do nothing.
And just concentrate on your breathing and just set it all aside and extract yourself.
Extract your consciousness from the momentum of your life And I think a lot of people don't do that and they get caught up in this hurricane of existence Where everything is just constantly going on your phone won't stop ringing this fucking people knocking at your door You got this going on that going on you got to go catch this flight and oh shit You got a fight coming up and oh shit.
You got this not and sometimes you lose yourself Yeah, you lose yourself in that wave of life.
I I definitely lost myself at one point in my life and I feel like right now I'm at this position where I am myself and I can see Jon Bones Jones and I can look at my career from a fan perspective.
You get what I'm saying?
And actually make fun of myself.
Like, damn, you fucking idiot.
Like, what have you done?
Like, you know what I mean?
Like, I have a good way of detaching something inside of me and seeing what's happening.
And okay, oh no, it's not over.
All you gotta do is just do this, do that, do that.
You get what I'm saying?
Yeah.
So I'm not necessarily meditating these days, but...
I do have the capability of taking away who I actually am at this point and realizing that this is just a part of me or this is just a situation in my life.
This isn't my actual life.
This isn't my final destination.
This is just a small moment in time that I'm going through right now.
And this guy's head, it's a small victory knowing that I backed down.
And we're not punching.
It's jiu-jitsu, right?
So no one's going to get hurt.
And it's like, you know what?
Let me live a little and just do this.
You know, I'm sure the kids are going to love it and people are going to love it.
So I was like, all right, give me a rash guard.
So they gave me a rash guard and I literally, I didn't even warm up.
I just kind of did one of these.
And then I ended up tapping these two guys out fairly quick, and I think some of these people from Submission Underground, they saw those videos and they're starting this new promotion where they're actually paying fighters pretty well.
So spiderweb is side control with not the arm bar locked up, but the arm hooked.
You know, the arm hooked.
So you have your legs across, the arms trapped, and ready to go.
So the guy on the bottom is trying to escape.
You're trying to hold him down.
Or you can start off with the over-under from back control.
So you don't like have a choke locked in.
But you have over-under, you have both hooks in, and you're on the back.
And they say, ready, go.
So it's how fast the person can escape versus how fast you can submit them.
At the end of the exchange back and forth, say if you submit your guy and then he has an opportunity to try to submit you, if you submit him faster than he submitted you, you win.
If you submit him and he doesn't submit you, you win.
And then if you both escape again, you do it one more time.
And then they calculate all the time it took for each one to escape, and the person who has the least amount of time and escaped the quickest winds up winning.
Listen, man, it's good to see you smile, it's good to see you laugh, it's good to see you happy, it's good to see you optimistic about your future, and I think you got a great perspective right now, and I really hope you keep it together, man.