Tim Kennedy Suggests Jon Jones’ Declining Because Of Partying
Jon Jones has been having a decline in performance in his last few fights. Former UFC fighter Tim Kennedy suggests that he may know the reason for this.
The light heavyweight king has a well documented history of hardcore partying. This has involved issues with cocaine, drinking, and smoking weed. Most notably, this affected his performance in the first Alexander Gustafsson fight.
Tim Kennedy, who retired from the UFC middleweight division in 2017, used to train with Jon. Speaking with Submission Radio, the subject of Jones’ two recent lackluster performances came up. In fact, Tim feels that the criticisms Jones has received for his split decision win over Thaigo Santos, and controversial win over Dominick Reyes are quite fair.
“I think it’s well deserved.” Kennedy said. “When he was like the hungry young lion and his personal life wasn’t bleeding over into his professional life, you saw a ferocious Mike Tyson-like thing, right? Then success came along, and so did money, and fame, and bad decisions, and DUI’s, and bribes, and coke, and strippers, and with that, I’m not saying that correlation is causation, but you have definitely seen a decline in performance, or the really large exclamation mark on how a fight is viewed while those kind of life decisions are happening. So, the technique, the talent, the skill is still in that fighter of Jon Jones, and like, for all contenders, I hope you all pray that his life is still a disaster, because if he get his life in order, like, that dude’s gonna be unstoppable.”
Kennedy went on to explain the differences that he could notice between Jones when he was sober, vs when he was partying.
“When he’s right, I hated training with him because he was so dominant. And then when he was off, like, if he had a night when he went out, you know, I could smell it. You know, you can smell booze, you can smell the weed. As an athlete, like, when you start sweating, all those things come out. And when I would smell that, I would be like, ‘Alright, today’s my day, let me get his back, or I’m gonna push the pace, or in the 4th, 5th minute of these rounds, he’s gonna deal with a more aggressive version.’ So, it was almost night and day in the gym.”
Whether or not Tim Kennedy is right in his suggestion, that Jon Jones is partying, which is why he is off is clearly unable to be verified. Regardless, given his history, it would not be the most surprising thing to hear.
