Jones’ longtime coach Mike Winkeljohn went on The MMA Hour on Wednesday to reveal that one of his most prized fighters has been banned from the famed Albuquerque training facility “at the moment.”
I just had a conversation with him, I said, ‘Jon, here’s the deal, man. You’re like my little brother. You have to stop drinking and fix these things for a certain period of time until you can come back to the gym.’
So at the moment, he’s out of the gym. He’s not allowed to come to the gym ‘cause I feel that… I don’t know, I feel I had to do that because ignoring it and expecting different results, as they say, is insanity. He’s got a lot of yes people around him that won’t tell him the truth.
He might hate me for it, but I had to tell him the truth. But in my heart… Gosh, that guy is capable of greatness. And I’m not talking about just fighting. In my heart, I hope he comes back, wins the heavyweight title, stops drinking, goes forward. He goes on to bigger things.
Oh my goodness, he’s capable… He’s so charismatic, he’s so dang smart, and he can sit down, break down fights and he can break down a lot of things in life. He’s capable of doing much bigger things than just this MMA world.