Jon Jones admits he set a poor example to other fighters as champion

Jon Jones is arguably one of the most naturally gifted fighters to ever set foot in the Octagon, but he apparently never matched his talents with an equal work ethic.

Jones dominated the light heavyweight division for nearly five years before his habits finally caught up with him. The 28-year-old was stripped of his belt after a hit-and-run incident last April, which earned him 18 months of supervised probation and a suspension from the UFC.

Now, with his suspension lifted and his first fight since the incident coming up, Jones admitted he set a poor example to other fighters during his time atop the UFC with his partying and lack of dedication.

"Pretty much my whole career I wasn't living like a champ," Jones told Mike Bohn of Rolling Stone. "Fighters that look up to me would go out with me on weekends and see me get blackout wasted, weeks before a fight. Then they think, 'Jon Jones can do it. Maybe I can.'

"It would be like Kobe Bryant taking a rookie out and getting blackout drunk the night before a game, then going out there and dropping 30 points the next day," he continued. "That would lead somebody down the wrong path of thinking. That was the same thing I was doing."

Jones is now attempting to turn his life around after becoming enamored with the type of lifestyle his level of success brings.

"I was never popular. I always kind of wanted to be accepted with the rich kids, with the cool kids, and I never had that," he said. "I became popular for the first time in my life, and I became obsessed with it. I loved being able to go to the bar and buy everyone a shot, make people happy, make people like me, and I became obsessed with that way of living."

As part of Jones' sentence, he made 72 court-mandated public-speaking appearances to talk about his struggles. Still, he emphasized that he's yet to prove himself worthy of the second chance he's been given.

"I'm only at the doorstep of earning my second chance. Doing community service was court-ordered. That's not earning a second chance. Being sober when you're on probation isn't earning your second chance. I got a lot of proving to do. It's a matter of actions. It's about my effort. I feel like I have a lot more work to do."

Jones was set to face his longtime rival Daniel Cormier at UFC 197, but Cormier pulled out due to injury, so Jones will instead take on Ovince Saint Preux on short notice in the co-main event on April 23.