A UFC middleweight claims he wasn’t intimidated by Jon Jones during their sparring session.

Derek Brunson is a UFC middleweight fighter who has fought some of the best guys in the UFC including Lyoto Machida and Anderson Silva. He has been a solid middleweight fighter in the promotion for quite some time but apparently, he used to spar with UFC light heavyweight champ Jones.

In a brief interview with Elie Seckbach of EsNews during the recent “Dominance MMA Media Day” press conference, Brunson talked about where Jones belong in the MMA GOAT list and his training sessions with the UFC star.

According to Brunson, Khabib Nurmagomedov has been more active than Jones but the current light heavyweight king speaks for himself.

“Khabib has been a little more active over the past but Jon Jones speaks for himself you know the guy gets in there and take everybody out,” Brunson said.

Brunson also revealed that he and Jones were training for quite some time now but he was never intimidated by “Bones” legacy as a champ.

“Me and Jon were training together for about 5 years. So I didn’t look at it. I was coming up, he was really kind of established himself at winning the belt so I look at myself as one of the top guys also so I was never surprised,” Brunson said about sparring Jones.

In the same event, former UFC lightweight champ Frankie Edgar also talked about Jones. Based on Edgar’s assessment, Jones is the best fighter in the world today.

“It has got to be Jon Jones. He’s never lost. (He has) never really shown a weakness in his game,” Edgar said.

Meanwhile, Jones is currently having an internet war with UFC middleweight champ Israel Adesanya. Jones fired shots at Adesanya on Twitter claiming that a fight between them may never happen as by the time Adesanya will be ready for him, he’s already competing at heavyweight.

“By the time this kid gets his confidence together I’ll probably already be in the heavyweight division. I don’t need to wait till 2021 to start believing in myself,” Jones Tweeted.

Adesanya fired back and said that Jones is just “jealous” of him. He also dissed Jones for showing less desire to defend his belt.

“He is jealous. He sees the freshman that is f-----g taking all the shine. He sees the new dog in the yard. I am going to defend my belt actively. I am not going to be like him and fight twice a year. Let me defend my belt, then I will move up and f--k him up,” Adesanya exclaimed.

Jon Jones
UFC Light Heavyweight champion Jon Jones intends to be the Floyd Mayweather Jr. of mixed martial arts. Jon Jones looks prior to a Light Heavyweight titlebout against Alexander Gustafsson of Sweden during the UFC 232 event inside The Forum on December 29, 2018 in Inglewood, California. Jones defeated Gustafsson by KO. Getty Images/Sean M. Haffey