Yorgan De Castro was one of Jon Jones' main training partners before his UFC heavyweight title win - and the 280lb PFL star now wants to win a world title of his own.
De Castro, 35, trained with Jones for six weeks in the lead-up to his UFC 285 fight against Ciryl Gane earlier this month. Jones choked out Gane in just over two minutes to win the vacant heavyweight belt and De Castro wasn't surprised at how the fight went. The PFL star revealed Jones, a former two-time light-heavyweight champion, was manhandling his other training partners who weighed over 300lb during training camp.
"I have nothing to teach that man, when it comes to MMA we all live in Jon Jones' world and his fight IQ is different," De Castro told Mirror Fighting. "He is such a hard worker, just because you train with the man it doesn't mean that you are the man but I take a lot of confidence from training with him. Working with him for a month and a half, I observed a lot and have the formula. Now I've just got to put it together."
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"It felt unreal, I've watched this guy fight a lot before I got into MMA. Even though we are the same age, he's been fighting for longer than me. To see him talk about me and just sharing the mats with him every day was surreal, I appreciate him and I think I'm blessed for training with him."
"I was the smallest guy training with him and I'm 280lb. Everyone else was around 6'5" and over 300lb, I saw him toss those guys around on a daily basis. When we were sparring twice a week he was taking guys down and doing whatever he wanted with them. You don't learn how to wrestle against Jon Jones in eight weeks, so we knew it would be over if Jon got a hand on him."
De Castro has the opportunity to win $1million as he competes in the PFL's heavyweight 2023 regular season, taking on Danilo Marques in the opening round this Friday night after two opponent changes. The Cape Verdean was first booked to fight reigning champion Ante Delija but the Croatian and his replacement Denis Goltsov were both forced out.
With an opportunity to call himself a millionaire by the end of this year, De Castro is relishing the chance to beat Marques and kickstart his PFL campaign. "I can't wait to share the cage with Danilo on Friday night, I know for a fact I will get my hand raised by knockout in the first round," he added.
