Jon Jones is a big fan of Ilia Topuria, but a part of him is still happy that the Spanish-Georgian fighter lost at the UFC White House event in June.
Jones chatted it up with Nick Turturro at his new Prince Street Pizza business, sharing his latest thoughts on the GOAT debate. Those included Ilia Topuria potentially taking the GOAT title off him, and how he beat back former GOAT contender Daniel Cormier.
Asked if there were any current fighters Jones was excited about, he immediately said “Ilia Topuria.”
“Before that White House card, I looked at him as invincible,” Jones continued. “As bad as I want other fighters to come and beat my records and become the next greatest, there’s another side of me that wants to hold onto that for my kid’s sake and my family’s honor. Honestly, I thought Ilia would be the first threat to be considered the greatest of all time and then we saw what happened to him.”
Jones is referring to Justin Gaethje beating the brakes off Topuria on the White House lawn. We’ll see how Ilia returns from that, but Jones has high hopes.
“He comes from a successful family and he’s a guy who doesn’t have to fight,” Jones said. “He doesn’t need the money but he does it out of love and those are the reasons that made me a big Ilia fan. He’s doing all the right things. His recovery, all of it, he’s a guy who deserves to win.”
As far as other guys dethroning him as GOAT, only one man has come close according to Jones.
“Daniel Cormier,” he said. “I feel as if we weren’t part of the same era, I think he would have been considered one of the greatest fighters, if not the greatest fighter of all time.”
Kind words from Jones, who isn’t always so kind when it comes to frenemy Cormier. But at this point we should expect “Bones” to flip-flop on certain topics. He also has a different opinion on negotiations for a White House fight. At the time, an angry Jones accused the UFC of low-balling him and demanded his release. Now he’s chill about it, even a little regretful he didn’t agree to UFC’s terms.
“Honestly, there was a little bit of contract negotiation that didn’t go my way,” Jones said. “Dana is the absolute man, that’s the boss, and sometimes you and the boss aren’t gonna always agree. Business is business. But man, I usually don’t have regrets. I stand with my decisions, and it was my decision not to compete on that card.”
“Tthe night of the fight, seeing all the boys walk out with our war heroes … Man, watching the boys walk out from the Oval Office and Trump be there and everything, it was one of the few times in my life where I just knew I should not be home on this night. I should have been out there.”
“I’m such a proud American, and I’m such a fan of military and law enforcement,” he continued. “And to salute our military and law enforcement on that night and me not be a part of it as one of the greatest American fighters in our sport’s history? It’s one of my small regrets that I have to live with forever.”
“It was my decision, I could’ve fought,” he concluded. “We just couldn’t come up to an agreement.”
