Jon Jones Says He Had No Doubts Since Rampage Jackson Fight

Jon Jones is arguably the greatest MMA fighter of all-time, but at one point even he was geeking out over meeting his favorite pro fighters.

Jones made his job look easy at Quinton “Rampage” Jackson at UFC 135 in 2011, and as it turns out, that’s the last time that he doubted himself. (Transcript courtesy of Marc Raimondi at MMA Fighting.)

“The last time I had major doubt going into a fight, I would have to say it was when I fought ‘Rampage’ Jackson,” Jones said. “I had a lot of nightmares leading up to that fight of things not going my way. And for some reason, he just … he intimidated me. He really did. I don’t know what it was.”

The interim UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jones recalled showing up before his UFC debut, and approaching Jackson. Even though Jones had promised himself that he wouldn’t be a ‘groupie,’ he admitted that he still looked up to “Rampage.”

“I was playing my cool. I walk around the corner and ‘Rampage’ and was sitting on a chair. I didn’t expect him to be so close and I go, ‘Rampage!’ He looks at me, he’s like, ‘Oh, you’re the Jones kid or whatever.’ I was sitting there thinking in my head, I can’t believe I just did that. ‘Rampage’ has always been kind of one of those guys, he’s such a cool dude. I idolized him a little bit. I think when it was time to fight him it kind of played in my head a little bit.”

Jones was set to unify his interim UFC Light Heavyweight Championship with Daniel Cormier’s UFC Light Heavyweight title this Saturday at UFC 200 on pay-per-view from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, before being pulled following a possible USADA violation. Fightful.com will have full, live coverage and analysis of the event, as well as post-show podcasts.

You can read more from Jones’ media lunch over at MMA Fighting.