Matt Mitrione would love to punch Jon Jones in the face at heavyweight

[split decision]

Wow, Mitrione really tees off the the LHW champ. Respects Jones as a fighter but not as a person. Sounds like many people on this board.

"I'm not a fan of Jon Jones as a person, but I like Jon Jones as a fighter. I think he's athletic and I think he has a lot of talent. As a fighter, I understand why he said, "no." He has a lot to lose. I'm sure Jon Jones said the show shouldn't have been riding on his shoulders. Just cuz he decided he didn't want to fight whoever, it shouldn't have cancelled the entire show. Well ,that's true to a certain extent, but on the other side of that coin is that, dude, you've been paid a pretty ridiculous amount of money ,we all can pretty much guess. You have been branded the face of the UFC, branded a new face of a new division in Nike. There is some responsibility you have (to say),"You know what, I'm the best in the world, it doesn't matter who the hell it is, let's get down and dance." Sometimes you got to do that. The dude hasn't even struggled in his fights, hasn't even struggled. There has to be a time where you say, "Ok, I'm pretty damn good, let's go ahead, it don't matter who's in front of me" kind of thing. I don't see Alistair Overeem, or Junior dos Santos or even Cain Velasquez for that matter, saying no to a fight against any heavyweight."

"I think he shows a lot of douchey quality when he talks about, "Well, I'm a business man," I'm just being honest. "I'm a business man here, I got less pay-per-views for this guy so why would I want to fight him?" Dude, you want to fight him because he is probably the next best person in line. Maybe you talk about this stuff with your camp people or your manager, but you don't bitch about that or make it your main argument of why you turned down a fight or why you don't want to fight someone. That's my opinion. Overtime, I think he went from being a pretty cool guy, pretty humble, to being about as arrogant as I can handle. He's so cocky, he seems like really, so disingenuous and just blah, just not my flavor of a human being, that's all. I even told Joe Silva, if Jon Jones is talking about going to heavyweight, I'd love to welcome Jon Jones to the heavyweight division. I'm not going to have a title anytime soon, so it's not going to be some superfight, but if you want to come play around in the heavyweight division, I'd love to try and punch you in the face. Let me be James Irvin, let me do that, cool."

http://www.mmamania.com/2012/9/5/329...ight#storyjump

[dhk1980]

wow, u can't say it any better than how mitrione did there.

[wK78]

wow, u can't say it any better than how mitrione did there.

He was pretty spot on.

[Loot]

He was pretty accurate....especially the part about him being the James Irvin in that fight.

[2K1GSXR1000]

Agreed. When you are a face for a company whos motto is Just Do It, it's pretty contradictory to just not do it or as Chael says, just do nothing. Matt and Jones have gone opposite ways on the humble to douche scale in their UFC careers.

So here is the real question. Does Meathead have anything other than size for Boner?

[Art Wanderlei]

Come on, give The MMA Hour props, not MMAMania who simply transcribed the interview.

[Skinny]

Matt is looking for cash and he's 100% correct on a couple of things:

(1) Not having a HW title anytime soon

(2) Like Loot stated - being the James Irvin/victim

Every time someone talks about Jones and makes another headline his value goes up. He's probably worth more now because of having not accepted the fight and receiving all the (bad) publicity than if he agreed to the quick work-out against Chael.

[niniendowarrior]

The douchebag is right on the money on many things.

[BulldogWrestler]

Let me be James Irvin is quite possibly the most self depricating thing I've ever heard a fighter say.

[split decision]

Come on, give The MMA Hour props, not MMAMania who simply transcribed the interview.

Transcription is worth its weight in gold here.