Jon Jones says ‘my goal is to be active’ following UFC 235

UFC 232 closed out 2018 as the final UFC event of the year. Returning in the headliner was one of the sports all time greats in former light heavyweight champion, Jon Jones.

In the main event, Jones would reclaim the vacant title by defeating Alexander Gustafsson for the second time as he would pick up a third-round TKO victory.

Shortly after that fight, Jones found himself booked for his next fight as he will look to defend his title against Anthony ‘Lionheart’ Smith at UFC 235 on March 2 next week.

Assuming Jones comes out unscathed, he would like to keep this active pace going.

“I keep arguing with myself whether I’m going to go (fight) once a quarter or just three times this year,” Jones told MMAjunkie. “My goal is to be active. Usually, my feet hurt after fights because I’m a heavy kicker. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get right back to training and just stay active. That’s my goal.”

However, for Jones it all depends on getting through Smith at UFC 235. A task that he believes is going to be tougher than it’s getting credit for.

“When the camp started I didn’t know anything about him, really,” Jones said. “Now that I’ve been studying him I see he’s a worthy opponent. To everyone else, he’s this gigantic underdog, but I take him very seriously. He’s done some nice things in his past fights and he has my full attention. My goal is to finish the fight and dominate him, but I give him my full respect and he’s ready to be in this position. I’m excited for a good challenge.”

For Smith, it will be his first career UFC title shot and he’ll look to keep his perfect light heavyweight record intact by scoring one of the biggest potential wins in MMA history.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 2/22/2019