Jon Jones went through the wringer before his triumphant UFC comeback.
Jones, who defeated Ovince Saint Preux by unanimous decision at last weekend’s UFC 197, was not at his best but still got the job done.
‘Bones’ has now been announced as the main event star of UFC 200. He will fight Daniel Cormier for the undisputed light heavyweight strap at the July 9 event.
With the biggest event of the year a mere 11 weeks away, it means there will be little let-up in his training and publicity obligations.
One hopes, though, that Jones will get to spend some quality time with his family after a rough couple of weeks. At the UFC 200 press conference in New York, on Wednesday, he said:
“In my last fight, I had a lot of stuff stacked up against me.
“A lot of you guys don’t really realise what’s been going on in my personal life. My mom [Camille Jones] is in a real bad position. She’s really losing a fight to diabetes right now.
“She got her leg cut off the same week of my fight, so that really messed with me a lot.”
In an interview about his mother’s health struggles, last year, Jones revealed that the diabetes had also adversely affected her eyesight.
WATCH: Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier had a moment at #UFC197 https://t.co/88yfzDIbnU
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) April 24, 2016
On top of that, Jones also had to spend the night in jail after being pulled over for what an Albuquerque police officer assumed to be an impromptu drag race. Jones added:
“I was in jail the same month of my fight. Just going through a lot of stuff, man.
“I hadn’t fought in over 15 months, and everybody is talking about my performance being so bad.
“I got punched twice. I won by unanimous decision. So if that’s a bad performance with the level that people expect from me, it’s really not a bad problem to have. I went out there and I didn’t feel comfortable in the octagon and I still absolutely dominated that fight.”
No matter how many roadblocks – internal or external – Jones encounters in his personal life, he seems to maintain that unshakeable belief that he is the UFC’s best active fighter.
He will need every shred of that confidence going into his tilt with Cormier this summer.
