Jon Jones has disappointed a lot of people with his many digressions over the past few years, but he has also given a wide number of people great satisfaction in watching whenever he has stumbled. During the UFC 232 conference call, Jones was asked why he believes that is.
“Well, I think people like to see people fall down because it humanizes the athlete,” Jones began. “It reminds people at home that this guy’s no better than me. Look at this guy, he’s a piece of shit. He does drugs. He got in a car accident. I’m better than him. It makes people feel better about themselves when they see someone who’s accomplished a lot do things that everyday people do. I think that’s why they like to see people fall down.”
But then those are people who love to watch Jon Jones rise again. Jones’s psychoanalysis would venture onto this sect of the audience next:
“It gives people hope. It gives people hope,” Jones said of why people like a good comeback story. “It’s like, man, if this guy can come back from this and that…had his mom dying, being severely depressed, losing his job, even when he knows he did nothing wrong…if this guy can come back from that, who am I to give up?”
Jon Jones claims that he almost didn’t return at all, but that it is his character that came to face the noise from both sides: those who love to see him fail and question all of his achievements as well as those who he has let down but always want to see him succeed:
“I thought to myself, how easy would it be for me to take nine world championships, $7 million, and just walk away from the sport? And delete Twitter, never worry about what fans have to say ever again. I mean, that’s the easy route. We’ve seen people do that before. We’ve seen people lose a fight and never come back. That’s the easy route.
“A real man comes back, faces the music, does it all over again, rebuilds it from the ground up all over again.”
“So I don’t know. The comeback story part, it gives other people hope. And I love the fact that my story’s controversial. It shows that I’m far from perfect. And it shows that if a guy like Jon Jones can do it, who says anyone can’t?”
Do you agree or disagree with Jones’s psychoanalyses of his detractors and supporters?
