Aside from a controversial disqualification loss from early on in his UFC career, Jon Jones is yet to taste defeat inside the Octagon.
His unmatched run after becoming the youngest UFC champion has turned ‘Bones’ into the consensus greatest of all time.
The fact that no one has gotten the better of him is exactly why so many fans want to see Jones face Tom Aspinall to unify the heavyweight titles because of the threat that the interim champion presents.
Though the former light heavyweight king hasn’t been bettered, that doesn’t mean that he’s always blown his opponents out of the water either.
Even before Jones’ controversial win over Dominick Reyes which many believe that he lost, the greatest to ever do it was heavily criticized following his performance at UFC 197.
Jon Jones admitted that he ‘let himself down’ by coasting through Ovince Saint Preux fight
At UFC 197, Jon Jones made his return to the Octagon having not fought in well over a year due to his issues outside of fighting.
With his rival and last opponent Daniel Cormier injured, ‘Bones’ was set to face Ovince Saint Preux for the interim light heavyweight title at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
‘OSP’ had already suffered losses to two men that Jones had beaten in the past in Ryan Bader and Glover Teixeira, making the former champion a huge favorite heading into April 23.
He went on to win every round in very uninspiring fashion before Jones gave the interim title back to Dana White.
In his one and only appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast in December of 2016, Jones said that the Saint Preux fight was his “worst performance” at that time.
He went on to explain why he thinks this was the case, saying he was unable to systematically break down his opponent like he usually does ahead of fight night.
As a result, Jones stated that he didn’t want to take unnecessary risks when all he wanted was to show up, get the win, get paid, and head home.
“He was so green and raw still, skill-wise,” Jones said. “I study everybody extensively and then I come up with their patterns… with Ovince Saint Preux, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do. He’s so unorthodox.
“He gets these random knockouts from these weird angles and he just wings stuff and he almost closes his eyes and next thing you know, he’s knocked somebody out.
“I had a lot on the line so I just said, you know what, this guy is in a shell pretty much the whole fight… I just thought I’d coast through the fight and not really risk anything which I felt like I let myself down because normally, when you get someone like that, you just take them out.
“I should have just been able to take him out but I was content with winning.”
UFC 197 was the first fight that Jon Jones went into without his safety net
Jon Jones admitted during his one appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience to what had been the subject of rumor for some time.
Before his light heavyweight title defenses, ‘Bones’ would often party right up until fight week before stepping inside the Octagon to face the best fighters in the world.
Jones told Rogan that the Ovince Saint Preux fight at UFC 197 was the first time that he didn’t do that, describing the process as a “safety net”.
“I literally would, one week before every fight, I would go out and I would get blacked out wasted. My logic was, if this guy were to beat me somehow, I can look myself in the mirror and say well, I lost because I got hammered the week before the fight. It was a safety net.”