In the weeks after his third victory as an amateur, The Sprawl caught up with up and coming flyweight prospect, Marlon Jones (3-0).
Jones fights out of popular Liverpool based gym Aspire Combat Sports Academy, which is home to some very well known fighters both in the UK, and worldwide. ACB talent Dean Garnett is one of the head coaches there.
Marlon, you are now 3-0 as an amateur what is next for you?
I’m not that sure really as to what’s next, Dean [Garnett] and Phil [Turner] sort out my opponents for when I fight, so I’ll leave that up to them. I’ll most probably just get back in, get another fight and then look to compete for a few amateur flyweight belts. I hope to be able to fight harder opponents and gets some good fights out of them.
You train out of Aspire under the tutelage of coaches such as Dean Garnett, what is it like training under him at such a young age?
It’s good to be able to train with high level fighters like Dean as I can see what he has to do when training for his fights, so it can set a kind of guideline for other young fighters to be able to follow. We also have Phil Turner who’s a BJJ black belt and he is really important in training as he has such a wide knowledge of the sport and a lot of experience with training other fighters such as Dean.
You’ve shown you can fight both on the feet and on the ground, earning three stoppages in your first three bouts; how do you think you’ve evolved since your debut?
I feel like in my last fight I was much more patient and I took my time a lot more than I did in the first two. With the patience I felt I had more control over my opponent when on top on the ground and I felt more relaxed during and before the fight. My whole MMA game has improved as well a lot since my first fight. My strength and conditioning training that I do at Phoenix fitness has really helped me as I feel I have become much stronger and fitter since my first fight.
In recent months, weight cutting has been a major talking point in mixed martial arts, as an amateur, just starting out, do you have to cut much weight to make the flyweight limit?
I do not have to do ridiculous weight cuts to make flyweight. As my previous fights have all happened to be same day weigh in I mainly just lose all the weight through dieting in my camp, which is made very easy with the help of Au Naturel Nutrition that provide my meals through camp and Charles Jones who also helps control what food I am eating.
