Jon Jones recently spoke with The Schmo and touched on some interesting topics like partying with Tommy McMillen and what he thought of Alex Pereira and Sergey Pavlovic. The former UFC light heavyweight and heavyweight champion also talked a little about his protégé Gable Steveson.
Watch that interview below.
“Gable is doing really, really great,” Jones continued. “I believe in Gable. I believe in the man and the person that he is. I’m excited for him to figure things out in his life and in his personal life. And as far as Gable’s an athlete, he’s extraordinary. He’s absolutely extraordinary.”
Jones also said his star student “deserves” to bounce back from this KO loss.
“He deserves good things. He does all the right things. He’s a great father and a great husband and a great son. I see the way he treats the people around him and he deserves success.”
I’ll get into that in a bit.
Jones also compared Steveson’s rocky start to life in the UFC to his famous stumble with the sport’s GOAT, Georges St-Pierre.
“And when you think about it, all the great fighters have been knocked out and lost. I mean GSP vs. Matt Serra. There’s just so many examples. (Steveson’s) in the right headroom. He’s right back in training. I feel like as a team we need to add a lot more sparring and we have little things we can work on, but he’s got great hands and he’s got great hands. The team around him and we believe he’ll bounce back in an amazing way.
Steveson took up MMA after some exploratory moves to the NFL and WWE. Neither of those places suited him though (because he wasn’t good enough). The former freestyle Olympic champion looked at home in low-level MMA after crushing his first three opponents with first-round TKOs.
After winning the Mike Perry Dirty Boxing Championship 4 in October 2025, Steveson signed with the UFC. He was able to make it past both the Contender Series and TUF, so you know he must have been signed to a premium contract.
In his first fight, Steveson got through Elisha Ellison, but not without taking a few shots. Despite not looking great in that fight, he was made a ridiculous -2700 favorite for the Sharaf fight.
In the build-up to the Sharaf fight, Steveson did something quite special. He managed to unite a large number of MMA fans to root against him. We’ve seen MMA fans ignore and excuse many past controversies involving fighters. However, when Sharaf went after Steveson during his pre-fight press conference, which included he called Steveson a “rapist”applauded Sharaf both in person and online.
Sharaf’s comments came as Steveson and teammate Dylan Martinez were arrested on June 15, 2019, on suspicion of criminal sexual activity. In December, the Minnesota district attorney did not file charges against Steveson, citing a lack of evidence. In making the announcement, the county attorney also mentioned that they want Minnesota to have laws similar to neighboring Wisconsin, which has more discretion in charging suspects in sexual assaults involving intoxicated victims.