Jon Jones was just acting like an elite professional athlete when he turned down a fight with Chael Sonnen at UFC 151 on short notice, according to Jay Glazer.
The Fox NFL insider and Fuel TV UFC host says he “didn’t mind” Jones’ decision at all, even though it led to the UFC canceling the show outright because it had no viable main event.
“I’m around the NFL all the time, so I see [those choices] all the time,” Glazer told The Post via phone after he hosted the UFC on Fuel 6 weigh-in show Friday. “I have no problem with it. You’re your own corporation.”
Glazer also said he gives Jones, the UFC light heavyweight champion, a break because he’s fought multiple times for the UFC on short notice. Besides, Jones should not have wanted to spoil Sonnen’s unique brand of trash talk on just eight days notice.
“I would want six months of him building up the fight,” Glazer said of Sonnen. “I wouldn’t want a few days. I’d want Chael and his big mouth to be talking crap about me for six months. He’s the greatest salesman in sports.”
Glazer, who has been training and teaching MMA for years, is a big fan of Jones’ skill set. Jones defended his title Sept. 22 with a fourth-round submission victory over Vitor Belfort at UFC 152. Jones, 25, was the youngest champion in UFC history two years at 23 and Glazer thinks it’ll be awhile before he relinquishes the belt.
“I think whoever is gonna beat Jon Jones is about 16 years old right now,” said Glazer, who hosts Fuel’s pre- and post-fight shows.
The TV personality also teams with UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture to run a company called MMA Athletics that trains other professional athletes in the sport for fitness and conditioning purposes. He compares Jones to guys like Ray Lewis, Michael Jordan, Jerry Rice and Walter Payton because all those guys, like Jones, “outwork the world.”
Glazer shared an anecdote about Jones when they talked swimming workouts. Jones, Glazer said, told him he doesn’t swim for cardio, he does it to exhaust himself to the point where he’s nearly ready to drown in order to keep his composure during dire situations.
Jones had one of those against Belfort in the first round when the challenger caught him in a deep armbar and hypextended his right arm. Jones didn’t tap and came back to dominate the rest of the fight.
“You see a lot of guys will wince and start panicking,” Glazer said. “He relaxed. He picked up Vitor and slammed him down.”
Glazer says Jones “will go down as one of the greatest ever – absolutely.” He’d also like to see him fight middleweight champion Anderson Silva more than he’d like to see Jones move up to heavyweight, because of the similarity in weight between the two.
As for a potential Silva-Georges St-Pierre superfight, which could take place in 2013, Glazer called it “the most anticipated fight in history of MMA and might be right up there in the history of any combat sport.” Glazer is picking Silva in that fight because of Silva’s size.
Though there don’t seem to be enough hours in the day for all Glazer does, he said there’s nothing more he’d like to do than talk about football and fighting for a living. The Falcons have signed up to be trained for MMA Athletics for the offseason, a program that will be run by UFC middleweight contender Brian Stann.
There was a time Glazer said that on his pre-season camp tour that NFL players would ask him about coaching changes, scoops from other teams and the like. Starting four years ago, it became all about MMA.
“I did not get one football question,” Glazer said. “It was all UFC questions. It was all about Chuck [Liddell] and Randy [Couture]. Some guys asked about Fedor [Emelianenko].”
And now, they’re asking about Jon Jones.