‘Beatable’ Jon Jones: Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor lost because they believed their own hype

Outside of his disqualification back in 2009, as well as a super close call against Alexander Gustafsson nearly five years later, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) interim light heavyweight champion Jon Jones has looked unbeatable.

He’s not, and he knows he’s not, which is why he keeps winning.

That’s because any fighter who truly believes they are invincible is destined to fall, according to comments Jones made during a UFC 200 media luncheon in Los Angeles, as the fear of defeat can often mean the difference between winning and losing.

Which may be why the previously undefeated Ronda Rousey was smoked at UFC 193, while the streaking Conor McGregor got finished at UFC 196.

Jones elaborates to Yahoo! Sports:

“I know that I can be beat and I think that's why I haven't been beat, where some of these guys really start to believe their hype. Ronda Rousey, they were saying she's the best fighter of all time and best athlete in the world, stuff like that and I was happy for her to hear those types of accolades, but once I realized that maybe she was starting to believe it herself, I knew she was in a dangerous spot. Conor McGregor saying these things about just being the baddest dude and 'I'll beat anybody at any weight class,' that's foolish stuff. When you believe the hype to that level, that's when you're in danger. I talk about being confident in winning all the time, but the reason why I tend to always win is because at the end of the day I'm more nervous than any other fighter. It causes me to spend every night until 3 o'clock in the morning just on my laptop watching the same damn fight over and over again with a notebook, thinking about the ways I can lose, thinking about what I need to do. That's really what I attribute to being undefeated all these years, just how seriously I take it and how much I don't know. There's a lot of guys who are on my team currently, a lot of guys on my team who aren't in the UFC who can beat me on any given day. I get taken down all the time in practice. I get hit pretty hard. I get tapped out all the time in practice. To the fans and other fighters, they probably look at me as close to unbeatable, whereas if you spend time [at his gym], you see that I'm definitely not a guy that wins every day. I just got beat in a five-mile run by a kid that's like 15, 16 years old. So, I know that I'm not unbeatable."

If the hype doesn’t get you, the War Gods will.

Jones will try to unify the light heavyweight titles when he collides with bitter rival Daniel Cormier at the upcoming UFC 200 pay-per-view (PPV) event, locked and loaded for July 9, 2016 inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

For much more on the upcoming championship showdown click here.