Jon Jones drew attention after footage emerged of him telling a fan at a recent Dirty Boxing event that he is dealing with severe arthritis and is already a candidate for hip replacement surgery. Jones later criticised the person who posted the clip, calling him an \u201cassh*le,\u201d but confirmed the injuries are legitimate and said the UFC is aware of his condition, though that would not necessarily prevent him from fighting again under the right circumstances.<\/p>\n
Longtime rival Daniel Cormier, however, said he does not believe Jones was unaware he was being recorded. \u201cThe Meta glasses is a big thing right now,\u201d Cormier said on his YouTube channel<\/a>, as noted by MMA Fighting<\/a>. \u201cRosindo Sanchez, one of my coaches, he wears Meta glasses. First off, wearing the Meta glasses, they aren\u2019t unrecognisable. They don\u2019t look like the general shades like glasses, you can tell something there is a little different. Jon said the kid filmed him without his knowledge. Here\u2019s where I have a little bit of an issue with this statement. While I believe his intention may have been for him not to be recording him, it\u2019s very easy to tell if you\u2019re being recorded with the Meta glasses. It\u2019s hard to hide that you\u2019re being recorded with Meta glasses if you\u2019re in close proximity with the person that is using the glasses.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019ve been in the public eye, you build this almost sixth sense as to when people are recording you.\u201d<\/p>\n Cormier also questioned why Jones would reveal such personal medical information to a fan who had asked about a potential wrestling match between the two in RAF. \u201cI believe information like that, if it\u2019s that close to the vest, you don\u2019t share it with some random [person] either,\u201d Cormier said. \u201cI don\u2019t know that anything he does isn\u2019t intended to be taken in the way that it\u2019s taken. It feels like everything he does has a purpose. I don\u2019t believe him, and I don\u2019t think you should. Because I don\u2019t think he was unaware of the video.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Jon Jones knew what he was doing. I think he wanted people to know that he\u2019s injured, and I think that\u2019s exactly the way that he wanted it to happen by giving it to an influencer. That influencer then put it on the internet and then you can feign ignorance and go \u2018oh my god, I got caught.\u2019 Not true.\u201d<\/p>\n While sceptical about the circumstances of the recording, Cormier said he does believe Jones is genuinely dealing with significant physical problems and suggested the damage from years of competition may now be catching up with him. \u201cI believe Jon Jones is hurt,\u201d Cormier said. \u201cI believe Jon Jones really is dealing with injuries from a long, sustained career in combat sports. Where knees and elbows and kicks were such a massive part of his game, the wrestling, sports from a young age takes a toll on the body to anyone. That was the video that made me believe that Jon Jones doesn\u2019t have anything left in that regard.<\/p>\n \u201cThere will be no wrestling match between he and I. Because if that\u2019s him in athletics, it would be too hard for him to compete in a wrestling match. His body will not hold up in the training to prepare for a wrestling match. So I think people should now start to get ready for a day when they don\u2019t have Jones in fighting. I don\u2019t think you\u2019re going to have him much longer in this sport. Because I don\u2019t think the guy\u2019s body is going to hold up.\u201d<\/p>\n Jones had recently campaigned for a place on the proposed UFC White House card in June, despite previously retiring after declining a heavyweight title fight against Tom Aspinall before reversing course when the event was announced. If he does not compete on that card, it could signal that his last appearance in the Octagon has already taken place.<\/p>\n Watching Jones discuss his injuries convinced Cormier that his former opponent may be coming to terms with the possibility that his career is over. \u201cIt\u2019s a sad thing because in real time you could see him come to accept that all those days are over,\u201d Cormier said. \u201cI fought that dude at 36 and 38 years old and I felt great physically and mentally going into both. But if I had to fight him at 38, 39 or 40 years old, I don\u2019t know if I would have felt the way I did.<\/p>\n \u201cIn real time, we\u2019re watching him come to the acceptance that it\u2019s over. You can see it. You can see him accepting \u2018I might be done.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jon Jones drew attention after footage emerged of him telling a fan at a recent Dirty Boxing event…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":["post-468355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}