Chael Sonnen and the bodybuilding coach Greg Doucette recently talked about the much-awaited heavyweight debut of Jon Jones.
Jones is undoubtedly the most dominant champion in light heavyweight history. The American fighter dominated the division for nearly a decade and managed to beat generation after generation of UFC contenders.
Jon never lost the belt to another fighter. The only times he lost his champion title were when he was either flagged for PEDs or when he had scuffles with the law.
Given the height and reach advantage he had in light heavyweight, many fans wanted to see Jones move up in weight and fight at heavyweight one day.
Turns out the much-awaited shift might be about to happen.
In August of 2020, Jones vacated his light heavyweight belt and stated that he was gonna start working on building muscle so he could move up in weight.
Nearly two years later, Jones appears to be ready as he looks physically bigger and more muscular in recent pictures shared on his social media.
Given the several occasions in which Jones has been flagged by USADA for use of PEDs, many fans worried if Jones bulking was the result of performance-enhancing drugs.
According to the bodybuilding coach Greg Doucette, that doesn’t appear to be the case.
In an interview he gave on Chael Sonnen’s youtube channel, Doucette talked about the issue.
“Jon Jones I believe would have been training less intensely in terms of his goal to build muscle more so focusing on cardio and so as he’s gotten older he’s saying ‘no and I want to add muscle’,” Doucette told Chael Sonnen. “So to me, he would have ‘newbie gains’ and it that first few years of growth, it’s a lot easier to put on muscle because he hasn’t really focused on building muscle.”
“He hasn’t really surpassed his natural genetic limits so until he gets there, he has the ability to get muscle.”
Doucette then shared what he believes would be around Jones’ “genetic limit”.
“What I like to say is when an elastic, the further you go and stretch the elastic, the harder it is to gain muscle, so when he was a lighter guy [at] 218 [pounds], it wasn’t stretched too far because his body naturally could probably go up in weight as he’s getting to 240,” he continued. “If he wanted to go 260, he’d probably need to take s—oids at that point but at 240, not really.”
Later during the interview, Doucette and Sonnen commented about how the weight gain could affect the former champion’s cardio as a heavyweight. The bodybuilding coach stated that it will definitely affect Jones, but not noticeably against other heavyweights.
“Comparing Jon Jones at 205 versus Jon Jones as a heavyweight, he’s not gonna have the same conditioning as he had,” he admitted. “However, he’s fighting against guys who also don’t have the conditioning he had at 205.”
Despite the long buildup, Jones still does not have a date confirmed for his much-awaited heavyweight debut. The former champion states on his Instagram that he wishes to become the heavyweight champion still on 2022. Hopefully we can see him in the octagon later this year.