head coach and former world title challenger Stephen \u2018Swifty\u2019 Smith to take her down a different path<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cWhen I turned up to the gym, Swifty was like, \u2018Why aren\u2019t you doing MMA? It doesn\u2019t make sense, like, you\u2019ve kicked all your life\u2019. I think he thought I was a bit mad at first, turning up saying I want to be a professional boxer at 32 years old.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, it was decided that Jones would enter the Misfits circuit before hopefully progressing to MF Pro, where she would then have the opportunity to face tougher opposition.<\/p>\n
Even without immediately joining the professional code, though, Jones was introduced to the harsh reality of boxing during her first sparring session.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d assumed fitness wouldn\u2019t be a problem but, due to the nerves of getting punched, I was literally lying on the floor, knackered, after my first round of sparring.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would even flinch a few times with my legs, almost ready to throw a kick. We\u2019ve come a long way since then but, yeah, it was a humbling experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked what she has learned through boxing, Jones explained the psychological benefits of challenging herself in an entirely new sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cI retired from taekwondo after having given everything to the sport, but I almost felt too young to retire.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d been in four Olympic cycles \u2013 won the first two and lost the second two \u2013 so I was just chasing history, trying to become the first person [in taekwondo] to get three [gold medals].<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t realise it at the time but I think everything had become a bit stale \u2013 doing the same thing for so long \u2013 and, when I lost in Paris [2024], it kind of took a piece of me.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I wasn\u2019t ready to retire completely \u2013 I still love to have a scrap. And, if anything, boxing has made me mentally tougher. Losing the Olympics and going straight into boxing \u2013 the toughest sport in the world \u2013 it was always going to be scary.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve only got little gloves and you can get knocked out \u2013 your ego and everything is on the line when everyone\u2019s watching, which can only make you mentally tough.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having jumped from one combat sport to another, two-time Olympic champion Jade Jones is already in the mix…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-768438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}