{"id":792493,"date":"2026-07-11T01:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T01:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/792493\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T01:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T01:06:11","slug":"jones-ufc-329-fight-week-makes-me-miss-the-game-tremendously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/792493\/","title":{"rendered":"Jones: UFC 329 fight week \u2018makes me miss the game tremendously\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jon Jones is back in Las Vegas for UFC 329<\/a> fight week, and it\u2019s giving him that old hunger to compete.<\/p>\n

Jones has become Olympic freestyle gold medalist Gable Steveson\u2019s mentor as the amateur wrestler makes his transition into the world of mixed martial arts. Less than a year into his pro career, Steveson is 3-0 with all three fights ending via first round knockout. Not a bad start for the two time Division I wrestling champion!<\/p>\n

But with big expectations come (somewhat)<\/a> bigger challenges. The UFC has now signed the heavyweight Steveson, who will make his debut on the prelim portion of UFC 329 against 5-2 fighter Elisha Ellison. \u201cThe Snack Panther\u201d is just 0-1 in the UFC, having been defeated by Brando Pericic via first round KO.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels so good to be back here,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIt makes me miss the game tremendously, but I had my time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Longtime GOAT contender<\/a> Jones has been going back and forth in his head and in the media regarding another fight. Most recently, he declared that all the big fights the fans want to see are still possible. But now he\u2019s back to sounding content with his decision to retire.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like to be one of the best fighters you have to be very selfish,\u201d Jones said. \u201cNow it\u2019s time for me to learn more about being selfless and so I\u2019m here, Team Steveson giving him the best I\u2019ve got, giving him my full support all the way to the top.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll see how long Jones sticks with this position. But even if he jumps back to wanting to fight, he\u2019d need to convince the UFC to make him an offer \u2026 a big one based on his refusal to fight for $15 mil<\/a> on the UFC White House card in June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jon Jones is back in Las Vegas for UFC 329 fight week, and it\u2019s giving him that old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,318251,1396],"class_list":["post-792493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-329","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}