Jon Jones made a pummeling comeback into the UFC, but the newly crowned Heavyweight champ says he will not compete if he’s not allowed to tape his toes in fights.
I tape my toe just to ensure that it doesn’t pop out: Jon Jones
“Bones” made his much awaited comeback to the Octagon in a vacant Heavyweight title fight against former interim champ Ciryl Gane in the main event of UFC 285 last weekend. The fight ended in the first round itself, as Jones forced Gane into tapping with a guillotine choke.
Following his victory, Jones revealed that he had taped his toes ahead of the fight to avoid injuring a fractured toe, but was made to cut the tapes off before entering the cage, something he doesn’t expect to repeat in future- otherwise, he warns to not compete anymore.
“Yeah, so I broke my toe when I fought Chael Sonnen years ago and ever since then, every day I practice, I tape my toe just to ensure that it doesn’t pop out again,” said Jones during the post-fight show on ESPN. “The toe is totally fine. But every once in a while, if I pivot on it too hard, it sends the most excruciating pain up my body, and I just never want to compete without my toe taped again. So, hopefully, the proper people hear me, and I don’t run into the issue again.”
“I knew, being a world champion, being in my position, nothing is supposed to be easy,” Jones explained. “Baltimore Ravens, my brother Arthur (Jones) taught me that you got to have skin like an armadillo. And so, I was having tape issues, said you know what, screw it, who cares. Nothing’s going to stop me. I want to be in there. It’s time for me to eat. So they cut the rest of the tape off my foot, they left my toe taped. It was awesome…”
“I’m not going to compete if I can’t tape my toes,” he added during the press conference after UFC 285, “I just won’t do it. I want everyone to know that in the future, so thank God we didn’t have a disaster out there tonight.” [H/T Sportskeeda]
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