UFC 128 holds the biggest fight of Jon Jones’ career to date where he is up against the current champion Mauricio “Shogun” Rua for the UFC Light Heavyweight Title.
Jones talked this week about his mental game and his approach with mind games he plays with opponents in the octagon:
“If you look really closely at my past fights, I never actually look into the guy’s eyes. Nor do I do it at weigh-ins. At weigh-ins normally I just look off into the audience and it kind of plays a little mind game on my opponents a lot of times. They don’t really know how to react to that.”
“As far as when I’m in the Octagon, I’m always looking at the opponent’s body when I’m standing there. I’m big on not fighting an opponent’s name, his credentials, his past fights, his face. I fight the body and when I’m standing across and I’m looking at his body, I’m really just humanizing the guy, and looking at imperfection in his physique or… You know there’s a quote that says, ‘If a guy looks soft in the mid-section, usually he is soft in the mid-section.’ So I’m just humanizing the opponent. That’s what I’m doing. For Ryan Bader it wasn’t that easy though because I’m staring at the guy’s body and the guy’s built like an NFL linebacker, but yeah I’m just excited when I’m out there and getting ready to fight the human.”
