Jon Jones doesn’t have much experience with losing fights, but he shared his thoughts on the subject of Ilia Topuria’s recent loss to Justin Gaethje and what the Spanish-Georgian fighter will need to do to come back in top form.
Jones was in Russia to host an IBA Bare Knuckle boxing event and took the time to speak to Red Corner MMA about a number of topics. He gave more context to his comments about Alex Pereira that caused a bit of drama between the two. And he shared a positive outlook for Ilia Topuria following “El Matador’s” first loss in the cage.
“When you become a UFC champion, you become more famous right away,” Jones said on the challenges of remaining at the top. “You get invited to dinner, there’s the girls, there’s the money, there’s all these new friends. There’s just so much that gets thrown at you. And if you’re not grounded enough, if you don’t have a strong enough circle and team, it’s easy to just get distracted.”
“You know, I have fallen victim to all the things that a young athlete can, the partying and getting in trouble, all of it. But in my situation, I had a team that always held me to a high standard, and they never allowed me to get discouraged by my downfalls, and they always encouraged me to just keep moving forward.”
“Ilia, he’s gonna be in a good position,” he continued. “He has faith. He has a strong team. And that’s what it takes. He has a work ethic. I think he’s honest with himself. Ilia and I, we share the same agent, and we were talking about him earlier today. And what I heard was that he’s humble, that he is honest. He realized that he just didn’t perform well, and I think that’s the number one step of getting back into the ring in a healthy way.”
“It’s the guys that make excuses, that’s when it’s hard to come back and win that rematch. Guys who just say, ‘You know what? I could’ve did better, I could’ve done more.’ Honesty with yourself is is the key to MMA. Knowing exactly who you are, what you’ve done, what you haven’t done. You can’t lie once you get in that cage. What’s real will come to the light.”
Topuria hasn’t said much but others have done some speaking for him. Fellow Georgian fighter Merab Dvalishvili blamed eye pokes for blinding Topuria early, and upon closer inspection there was at least one thumb that hit Topuria’s eye. But it’s hard to deny that Topuria fought a sloppy fight compared to how he has competed in the past. To speed things up and make his first round prediction come through, he seemed willing to take a punch to land two of his own. By round two, the damage from those punches was taking its toll.
Whether Topuria was impatient, prideful, distracted, he’ll have a chance to learn from his mistakes once the bones in his face heal. We’ll see if Jon Jones is right and he makes honest fixes to the mistakes that led to losing his undefeated status.
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