Jon Jones suffered serious arm injury prior to UFC 214, coach says

UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones was able to defeat Daniel Cormier in convincing fashion at UFC 214, but new testimony reveals that Jones may not have done it with a clean bill of health.

Jones' coach, Mike Winkeljohn, confirmed during an interview with Submission Radio that the light heavyweight champion sustained an injury during wrestling practice mere days before his highly anticipated return to the Octagon, according to Damon Martin of MMAWeekly.

“A couple of nights before the fight, he couldn’t lift his arm. He had hurt it wrestling,” Winkeljohn said.

“It was one of those situations where when I was warming him up I’d ask the coaches and they had agreed, they were ahead of me on this, that we shouldn’t be doing a lot wrestling because I didn’t want Jon to try and have to underhook and lift with his one arm because it could potentially cause it to be hurt again and mess with his mindset."

Winkeljohn said the injury affected Jones so badly at the time that he was unable to raise his arm above his head, but that the new light heavyweight champion never once considered backing out of the fight.

“He didn’t say anything about it. Let me put it that way, no matter what, how much it hurt, whether it was tingling or felt weak, Jon didn’t say anything, he just went and fought. And that’s why Jon Jones is a champion, he has that mindset.”