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Jones maintains stance over not fighting Rashad

Jon Jones' fighting skills could soon earn him a shot at a title © UFC

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Jon Jones has admitted that "preparing to do physical damage" to Rashad Evans is not something he would ever contemplate doing.

Jones told ESPN recently that he would not step into the octagon with his team-mate Evans, despite the pair being in the same weight category and potentially on course for cracks at the light heavyweight title.

UFC president Dana White took exception to the comments and launched a verbal assault on those who have voiced their concerns about fighting team-mates.

"It's f****** ridiculous. It's embarrassing," White told ESPN. "I think it's embarrassing to say 'I won't fight somebody because I train out of the same camp'."

Despite potentially incurring the wrath of UFC's supremo, Jones maintained his stance that he could not envisage fighting his Greg Jackson colleague Evans.

"Fighting Rashad is the last thing I'd ever want to do," Jones said. "To me, being able to call Rashad when we're 40 years old and say, 'Let's go fishing,' or something like that, that's more important than the paycheck we would get today. I train with the guy. We've had conversations about personal things."

Jones has clearly formed a bond with Evans and the thought of taking lumps out of his friends is something that does not appeal to the 23-year-old.

"Not that it has anything to do with race, but we're both African-American guys and we're fighters. We've got a lot of similarities between family and all this other type of stuff," Jones said. "Rashad's a unique character to me. There's not many guys that I can relate to like Rashad, and preparing to do physical damage to him just doesn't add up to me."

Jones will fight Ryan Bader at UFC 126 in Las Vegas on February 5.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.