Jon Jones challenged himself by drinking before fights

UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones says he used to drink before fights to challenge himself.

Jon Jones is trying to become a better person. That’s good news for him and bad news for any UFC light heavyweight hoping to dethrone the current champion.

In an interview with Sports Illustrated’s Maggie Gray, Jones opened up about his past mindset and how he used to challenge himself before he stepped into the cage.

“I almost did accept doing self-destructive things,” says Jones. “Somewhere in my head, I was doing it to challenge myself. To see what type of adversity I could fight through.”

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Jones mentions that he would drink before fights and do “stupid stuff” just to stack the deck against himself.

Let that sink in. This man purposely attempted to sabotage himself prior to a cage fight just to up the difficulty. And it didn’t work. He still went on to defeat everyone put in front of him, most of the time with relative ease.

Jones said that he used partying as a crutch because “there’s something that’s really defeating about doing all the right things and come up short.”

The current UFC light heavyweight champion goes on to say that he now “dares to be great.”

The whole world saw what greatness looked like at UFC 214 when Jones stopped Daniel Cormier in the third round to recapture the light heavyweight title. The Jackson-Winkeljohn product didn’t miss a beat in the cage despite a one-year layoff, breaking down DC with a variety of strikes before rocking him with a head kick and finishing the fight with an onslaught of ground and pound.

Jones next step towards greatness might include a showdown with current WWE Universal champion and former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar. While the bout isn’t close to being official and multiple hurdles must be cleared, both parties are interested in making it happen.

Whether it’s Lesnar, Alexander Gustafsson, Stipe Miocic or anyone else. I feel sorry for the man who has to face this version of Jon Jones next.