“I Want to Take Him Down While He’s Inexperienced”: Jon Jones on His Next Opponent

In a press conference, Jon Jones answered many questions regarding his tactics and the reasons behind his bold choices.

One such question was aimed at him picking Dominick Reyes for the upcoming fight, even though Reyes was the tougher option. To this, Bones replied, “There’s a little strategy behind it, you know. A guy as young as Reyes is only going to get better in the game. I want to take him down while he’s still inexperienced, and I think we all know that I do better in rematches. So, when he does come back, I’m gonna be even more dominating then, than this Saturday. And the other half is about striking when they’re hot, you know. He’s hot right now and as I said at the press conference, I don’t wanna wait, I want to get people the fights”.

Responding to Dominick’s strategies, Jon Jones said, “I think he’s reaching. My job is just to call him out on his silly comments. My job is to take his ideas away and send him into the fight with nothing and it’s easy to do that, you know, because when you say things like ‘I beat Weidman and Weidman beat Anderson, so that’s all the magic I’m gonna need’, I’m like what are you talking about. It’s about the skill-set. He’s just silly, you know, he’s just reaching for anything he can find. Ultimately, he doesn’t think before he speaks and finds himself backtracking. Can’t even back up his own thoughts”.

Jones also spoke about how with experience, he’s gained a lot of maturities. Comparing himself to Reyes, he stated that Reyes was extremely emotional about what he said, which is similar to how Jones used to be.

Jon Jones Idealizes Daniel Cormier

Just a few days ago, Jones had publically stated that his beef with Daniel Cormier was “all over”. While speaking to journalists about his career and how long he thought he could endure it, he said, “I haven’t really thought about it, but I wanna be here for an extremely long time. I want to be here for the whole next decade, and I wanna be a champion for the whole next decade. I look at Daniel Cormier as an inspiration. For him to be champion at forty years old, dominating guys much younger to him lets me know if I do the right thing, there’s no reason why we can’t keep up with this next generation of fighters. Thank you for the motivation, Daniel Cormier”.

A statement of this sort about his rival for a very long time does indeed back up Jones’s claims of having gained maturity. He believes it is this maturity that will help him gain a huge edge over the ‘inexperienced’ Reyes. All these factors make the wait for UFC 247 even edgier for the fans.