Most UFC fans may have witnessed a unique feature in the current UFC heavyweight champ, Jon Jones’s, pre-fight weigh-ins. Generally, UFC stars often get into altercations or minor scuffles with their rivals during their face-offs. But ‘Bones’ is way different as he chooses not to look into his rival’s eyes even at the time of his stare down. Recently, an Instagram page named, ‘Fight Spotted’ put out a video questioning why Jones does this. Their question also got answered in the comments section by none other than ‘Bones’ himself.
Despite Bones’ unique characteristic feature, it’s not that he never had any untoward incident during his pre-fight. It was probably him who had the worst scuffle in the history of UFC pre-fight events. Most fans may remember the intense brawl that broke out between him and the noted Daniel Cormier at the stage of the pre-UFC 178 face-offs.
But Jones has been pretty vigilant towards maintaining his ‘no eye-contact’ rule in all of his other face-offs. The caption to ‘Fight Spotted’s’ post asked for an answer to why he does it. It read,
“The whole MMA community wants to know @jonnybones”
Tagging Jones in the caption worked well for ‘Fight Spotted’. The 36-year-old answered the question, mentioning,
“Bc It’s not anything personal, they’re all amazing characters in my story.”
‘Bones’s’ answer also hints at the fact that the respect that he has towards his rivals is also one of the reasons behind not looking into their eyes. However, not only does he give respect but also demands it. Recently, he taught this to the current interim heavyweight champ, Tom Aspinall.
Jon Jones removed Tom Aspinall’s hand from his shoulder
Most fans may be already aware of the recent feud between the undisputed and interim heavyweight champs Jones and Aspinall. While Aspinall constantly called out Bones for the match, Jon Jones hit back at him by saying that the interim champion has an “inflated ego”. Amidst the constant to and fro, these two recently met up at a sports event. During the chit-chat in the meeting, Aspinall casually placed his hand on Jones’s shoulder.
However, the latter wasn’t pretty comfortable with this act as he removed Aspinall’s hand politely. The Rochester native may have perceived that the British heavyweight was trying to belittle him by this action and hence removed his hand.
Aspinall may have clarified later that he didn’t mean to belittle or disrespect Jones by that act. But the thought process that made Jones remove his hand may be quite apparent to the fans.
