Jon Jones - "I would party one week before every fight..."

Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. But you have a responsibility of greatness. There's very few people that ever get to the position that you not just were in when you won the title, when you were the youngest ever UFC heavyweight, or light heavyweight champion. Not just that. The youngest ever UFC champion. Not just that. There's also responsibility that comes with potential. It's not just what you've done. And it's what you could have done. You fought Alexander Gossipsen. Be honest about that. How much did you train for that fight? I trained. I trained for the fight. But I definitely, I had this thing where I just felt invincible. And I did a lot of wild stuff leading up to the fight. I definitely didn't give it my all. As far as partying and not sleeping right. Really partying and just drinking, staying up all night. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, when you win a fight like that, where you weren't 100%, does that sort of almost reinforce this idea that you could do anything you want? And that, man, imagine if I trained next time, if it's someone big, I'll train. Yeah. So I have this, I'm gonna share something with, I'm not sure if I've ever shared this with anyone else before, but I had this crazy thing that I would do where I would party one week before every fight. And I did it throughout my whole career. And this was stupid, but it was this mental crutch that I had. I literally would, one week before every fight, I would go out and I would get blacked out wasted. And my logic was, if this guy were to beat me somehow, I can look myself in the mirror and say that, well, I lost because I got hammered the week before the fight. So. It was a built-in safety net. It was a safety net, yeah, exactly. So I did it my whole career. I would go out and get hammered one week before every fight. Have you ever worked with a sports psychologist? No, but now, but now I don't, my Oven Saint Proulx fight was the first fight that I did not do that. It was my worst performance. So it was just like- I see, I don't think it was your worst performance. I think you were very unjustly criticized for that fight. Cause I think Oven Saint Proulx is a very tough guy. He's a very difficult fighter. He's very strong. He's got a brutal left kick. He's athletic. He moves well. I believe it was a good performance, but it was my worst performance. See, I think Oven Saint Proulx is a really tough guy and it was a tough fight and you hadn't fought in a long time. I had a lot of stuff. You were off for how long? How many months? 16 months or something? Yeah, it was over a year. Yeah, it was a long time. Over a year. I had a lot of stuff going on. A lot of pressure. And then you're fighting a guy who'd been pretty active and fought some good guys. Had a great victory over Shogun and looked real good in a lot of his fights and was an up and comer. The main thing about Oven that really bothered me was he was the most, well he was seasoned. He actually has been fighting longer than I have. A lot of people don't realize that. But he was just so green and raw still. Skill-wise. Skill-wise. I study everybody extensively and then I come up with their patterns. I figure out the way they flinch. I figure out their first favorite punch, their second favorite punch, their favorite combinations, their setups to their takedowns. When they clinch, what side of their head's gonna be in. Literally everything. I know everything about every opponent. What side are they gonna shoot? Whether it's gonna be head inside, head outside. What am I gonna do about that? I figure out everything. Why they shoot. What area of the cage they like to shoot. Everything. And with Oven St. Peru, he doesn't know what he's gonna do. He's so... Unorthodox. Unorthodox. And he gets these random knockouts from these weird angles and he just winks up and he almost closes his eyes and next thing you know, he's knocked somebody out. So the scary thing about him was he's so unpredictable. And I had a lot on the line. So I just said, you know what? This guy is, he's in a shell pretty much the whole fight. He was defensive the whole fight. And I just thought I'd coast through the fight and not really risk anything. Which I felt like I let myself down because normally I would just, I mean normally when you get someone like that, you just take them out. I should have just been able to take them out. But I was content with winning. And I think that was one of the first fights where I actually just wanted to get the win, get my money, go back to my actual goal, which was DC instead of wanting to finish this guy like normal. So I had to really question myself and why I was like that, why I was content with coasting. Yeah. Yeah.