Another fighter has walked into a gym with Jon Jones and walked out humbled. DAZN ran the admission Thursday, quoting an MMA star who said Jones “beat me like a dog” in what the outlet described as a brutal sparring session with the UFC legend.
The version of the story we have doesn’t name the fighter or say when or where the session happened. Normally I’d grumble about that. But the quote is clean, it’s on the record with DAZN, and it fits the pile of gym stories about Jones that has been growing for close to two decades.
Jones is widely regarded as the greatest of all time. The only loss on his pro record is the 2009 disqualification against Matt Hamill, which nobody who watched that fight counts as a beating. In the cage, nobody has really solved him. In the training room, one man has.
The Amagov exception
That man is Adlan Amagov, and his name came back around this week for unrelated reasons. Bloody Elbow reported Wednesday, citing Red Corner MMA, that the 40-year-old former Strikeforce fighter has signed with ACBJJ, a grappling promotion that runs Brazilian jiu-jitsu matches and hybrid “Battle Match” events. It will be his first competition in about a decade.
Carlos Condit was the first to make the story public. Amagov dropped Jones during a sparring session in Albuquerque early in Jones’ career. Condit’s telling had a spinning back kick doing the damage, while a 2025 clip shared by Home of Fight framed it as a body shot. Jones confirmed in 2025 that the session ended with him on the floor, and Home of Fight called it the only time Jones has ever been finished.
Amagov went 2-0 in the UFC, a decision over Chris Spang and a knockout of TJ Waldburger, then stepped away at 27 to focus on his family and get out of brutal weight cuts. He’s 14-2 as a pro (eight knockouts, five decisions, one submission). He’s been a “what if” ever since.
Where Jones sits now
Jones isn’t training at Jackson Wink anymore. He was permanently barred from the main gym in Albuquerque in 2021, and MMA Weekly reported he has been working with Gable Steveson privately. That arrangement took a hit when the Olympic gold medalist lost by first-round knockout in his last outing.
Jones also keeps catching strays from the heavyweight title picture. Josh Hokit, who fights Ciryl Gane for the UFC heavyweight belt at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 14, dropped a diss track aimed at Gane, Tom Aspinall and Jones, and one headline from that rollout says Hokit compared Jones to Diddy. Hokit also told MMA Weekly that Steveson “has stretch marks around his mouth with Jon Jones,” which is about as subtle as Hokit gets.
So Jones is getting dragged on mics and podcasts by guys who haven’t touched gloves with him. Meanwhile the people who actually spar with him come back saying they got beat like a dog.
My take: that tells you plenty. Talk is cheap on fight week, and rounds in the room are expensive. The gym stories about Jones run in one direction, and the only guy who ever reversed it is about to compete in a grappling league. Everybody else who signs up for a sparring session with him should probably bring a mouthguard and lower expectations.
