Jon Jones explains why he kept Steven Seagal away
September 29th 2011
Jon Jones has revealed why he barred former action movie star Steven Seagal from entering his dressing room prior to last weekend’s fight with Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson.
Speaking to Jim Rome of the ‘Rome Is Burning’ sports show in the US, he also revealed that he thinks he will be facing Lyoto Machida in the near future.
“You never know what people’s motives are,” he said when asked to explain why he had turned down Seagal’s request to join him in the dressing room pre-fight.
“And especially to chat with a guy that coaches Lyoto Machida… [because] Machida is definitely a guy I am gonna fight in the near future. I didn’t want to share my psychology with him or who I am leading up to the fight, anything that would put me at a disadvantage leading up to the fight.
“So I just told him no and he kind of stayed away. And it can be confusing as well to have someone give you last second advice, it can be detrimental.”
Jones’ voice was level when he relayed this information but he cracked up when Rome began questioning what possible use Seagal could be to a modern mixed martial artist. Seagal has links to Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida but, for those who don’t know, that was all orchestrated via a Brazilian PR team. Seagal possibly isn’t in on the joke and thinks its all serious.
“I am not sure how he got my number… He was just like, ‘Hey listen, I think you are gonna win and when I predict someone will win I am never wrong.’ and ‘I have a few things I want to go over with you…’ - it was all very strange,” Jones laughed.
“I don’t wanna badmouth him too bad, he had good intentions I think, but yeah, I definitely didn’t want to have him part of my corner… I could see Jet Li [doing it though], that would be pretty cool.”
