(Video courtesy of Jim Rome)
When Jon Jones called bullshit on Steven Seagal’s claim that he was slated to meet with the UFC light heavyweight champ just prior to him making the walk to the Octagon to face Quinton Jackson last weekend at UFC 135, most of us chalked it up to “The Glimmer Man” being a raving lunatic or a senile old man.
According to Jones, although he’s a strange cat, he doesn’t think Seagal is as crazy as he leads people to believe and as he revealed during an appearance on Jim Rome’s radio show yesterday, he may have had ulterior motives for the meeting.
Jones worried that the Aikido 7th Dan might have been sent to spy on him by Lyoto Machida‘s camp since a meeting with “The Dragon” is a likely inevitability.
“I just thought it was interesting. First off, you never know what people’s motives are, especially to chat with a guy that coaches Lyoto Machida. Machida is definitely somebody I want to fight in my near future and I just didn’t want to share my psychology with him or just who I am leading up to the fight that would put me at a disadvantage in the future. So I just told him I thought it was best if he kind of stayed away. And you know it’s just confusing, really to bring in somebody in that you don’t work with at all and have him try to give you last-second advice. I could just call in an athlete and [having Seagal in the room could] be more detrimental than helpful.”
Now either there’s a real spying problem in MMA or else there’s a real paranoia problem in the sport. I’m hoping it’s the former since it will make for better biopics and books down the road.
Jones went on to refute Seagal’s assertion that they were friends.
“I’m not sure how he got my number, but he was just like, ‘Hey, listen. I think you’re gonna win the fight and when I predict someone’s gonna win I’m never wrong. I’ve been watching the sport for so many years I’m never wrong when I make my predictions and there’s things I want to go over with you and things like that.’ It was all very strange. I don’t want to badmouth him too bad. He had good intentions, I think, but I definitely wasn’t interested in having Steven Seagal in my corner. Obviously if it was Jet Li or someone…Jet Li would be pretty cool.I definitely would take that call for sure.”
Hopefully the UFC can make that call happen. Imagine how pissed Seagal would be to look across to the other corner when Jones fights Machida to see Jet Li waving back? Classic.
Personally, I’d like to see “Bones” reach out to “Judo” Gene Lebell.
(Video courtesy of YouTube/RasmusDC)
Now we know why Sensei Seagal doesn’t like Joe.
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Oops – here’s the scoop on Seagal chickening out of a fight that he picked: http://www.austinfitnessgyms.com/steven-seagal-mma