Jon Jones: I was thinking about Daniel Cormier while fighting OSP at UFC 197
If it seemed to you that Jon Jones fought with a tad more hesitance than usual, Saturday, against Ovince Saint Preux, the fighter says he did. "Ovince is a heavy hitter. He has this huge knockout power and I was like, dude, I can't lose to a guy like Ovince trying to do too much," the former light heavyweight champion told media members at the post-UFC 197 press conference following his unanimous decision victory in the main event.
Jones was originally set to fight his rival and the light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier at UFC 197, before an injury took DC out and he was replaced by OSP. Prior to the bout, Jones was open that he had his mind on "the big picture" of rematching Cormier, who he beat in 2015 by unanimous decision.
It turns out that Jones was thinking of Cormier while fighting Saint Preux. Jones wanted to do enough to win, but not be too reckless and risk losing his chance to fight for the full title.
"A part of me was just like, 'you gotta fight DC, Jon. You gotta fight DC,'" he revealed.
"Like, do what you've got to do to win this fight. The goal is to get back to DC. Whether you look like crap right now or not, the goal is to get back to DC."
Jones nearly finished Saint Preux in the fourth round but time ran out. In the fifth, he got back to his conservative but effective game plan.
"I'm not making any excuses, but that was definitely in my psychology," he concluded.
"Just, do what you've got to do to win each round. Finish if you can, but don't miss out on an opportunity to fight DC by getting in there and haymaking with a guy who has this freakish knockout power - a guy who gets these knockouts from these really weird and unpredictable angles."
