Jon Jones stod för en suverän uppvisning när han återvände till oktagonen mot Daniel Cormier på UFC 214 förra helgen. Jones tog tillbaka sin lätta tungviktstitel från Cormier efter en brutal knockout som inleddes med att Jones träffade ”DC” med en huvudspark för att sedan avsluta honom på marken via otäck ground-and-pound.
Nu framkommer uppgifter som gör Jones bedrift än mer imponerande. Enligt tränaren Mike Winkeljohn ska Jones ha drabbats av en armskada på träning bara två dagar inför titelmatchen mot Cormier – så illa att han inte ens kunde lyfta armen. Det uppger han för Submission Radio:
“A couple of nights before the fight, he couldn’t lift his arm. He had hurt it wrestling. He wrestled a little too hard with his partner and maybe from a lack of warm up, I’m not sure, but it was kind scary,” säger Winkeljohn.
”It was one of those situations where when I was warming him up I’d ask the coaches and they had agreed, they were ahead of me on this, that we shouldn’t be doing a lot wrestling because I didn’t want Jon to try and have to underhook and lift with his one arm because it could potentially cause it to be hurt again and mess with his mindset. I wanted to keep that out of it and hopefully so that way if it got re-injured in the fight, the adrenaline would take over.”
”Är definitivt oroande”
Enligt Winkeljohn var skadan så pass allvarlig att den påverkade tränarnas förberedelser, då det inte fanns en chans att Jones skulle dra sig ur det hett efterlängtade returmötet med rivalen Cormier. Jones själv ska dock inte ha visat sig särskilt påverkad av skadan:
“So it was kind of scary that nobody knew about it. There was an injury behind the scenes, but Jon is who he is, he’s as tough as they come and like I said, nobody beats Jon Jones but himself. Once he decides he wants to win a fight, he’s going to win.”
“He just couldn’t lift it basically over his head and stuff. Of course, it’s definitely concerning. You know, in my mind, I’m thinking, ‘Are you going to be able to underhook with that arm? Or if not, you have to use a lot more frames and more downward pressure and circle the opposite direction, so game plan might have to be changed a little bit if it doesn’t get healed.’
“So there’s a lot of things that are going through the coaches’ minds. Who knows what was going through Jon’s mind. He basically didn’t say anything other than he’s fighting.”
Lyssna till hela intervjun med Mike Winklejohn i spelaren ovan.
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