In a recent interview, UFC president Dana White said light heavyweight champion Jon Jones
should go on to be the greatest UFC fighter in history, and that, like
Floyd Mayweather, he gets a bad rap. However, White conceded that for
hard to pin down reasons, people often don't like Jon Jones.
“Fighters are what they are," said White. "Jon Jones
comes off as a heel because people don’t like him. For whatever reason people don't like him, you know….”
Jones is learning to embrace the hate, and has a reply to critics who charge he is fake.
"I am fake," Jones told MMAJunkie's John Morgan. "I think everyone is
fake, to an extent. I have many different sides to me. I can be rude. I
can be funny. I can be goofy. I can be cocky at times. I swear I have
split personalities. So no one is going to understand me. I'm not meant
to be understood.
"You can show up to an arena in a terrible mood, and then when you
get the camera and the lights and the fans there, you've got to wake
up. You've got to smile. Even if you're not in the mood to be happy or
whatnot, you've just got to put it on. So that's what I mean when I say
I am fake."
"At the end of the day, I know that I love Christ. I love my family.
I know I love mixed martial arts. I know I love my friends, and
they're going to see different sides of me on different days."
"To be honest with you - and I know this might be controversial and
it may get me a lot of backlash - my haters come across as the dumbest
people ever. None of them have a real reason not to like me. 'Oh, you're
too tall.' 'I don't like you.' Or, 'You're t