UFC legend Jon Jones trained on a farm for his debut in the promotion

12 September 2023 , 16:20

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UFC legend Jon Jones trained on a farm for his debut in the promotion

UFC legend Jon Jones has told of how he trained for his UFC debut in 2008 in the barn behind a farm that his friend owned.

The two-weight world champion took on unbeaten Brazilian Andre Gusmao in August of 2008 at UFC 87: Seek and Destroy to kickstart a legendary career full of ups and downs. But what is not well-documented is the struggles he faced outside of the cage as he attempted to train for the big fight.

Jones ended up defeating Gusmao by unanimous decision at Minneapolis' Target Center and went on to defeat a series of rivals en route to his first world title effort. He became the promotion's youngest-ever world champion within two years, picking up the belt at the age of just 23.

"Andre was trained under the Gracies in jiu-jitsu and was a black belt in Capoeira which was rare in our country," Jones told the Overdogs Podcast. "I believe he also trained with Roger or Jeff Mayweather for a while and he had all these credentials, I was really intimidated by it.

"At the time I was training in my buddy's farm, he had a big barn at the back of his farm and I was training literally on the farm for my UFC debut. This guy had all the glitz and glamour, it was like Rocky vs Drago, this guy was Drago and he had it all. I was able to beat him by unanimous decision and I looked at myself as just this punk a** kid from Upstate New York.

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"But I had just beat, like, a real UFC fighter in my first fight and that made me realise 'Woah, I just won a fight in the UFC, I'm officially a professional athlete'. That opened my eyes that little old me from bumf*** wherever could go do something really cool."

Jones quickly moved on and inside of three years had dethroned Mauricio Rua for the light-heavyweight title. And after a dominant run atop the 205lb division that was mired in controversy, Jones moved up to heavyweight this year at the age of 35 to pick up the belt left behind by a departing Francis Ngannou with a submission win over Ciryl Gane.

Donagh Corby