British heavyweight Chi Lewis-Parry still wants to make Jon Jones pay for his words but said he doesn’t hate the UFC light heavyweight champion enough to reject him if he ever wanted his help.

Lewis-Parry (8-0-2) and Jones (26-1 MMA, 20-1 UFC) have had a frosty relationship stemming back to skirmishes when Lewis-Parry was part of Daniel Cormier’s training camp to face Jones. But, although the Brit admits he isn’t a fan of Jones as a man, he says he still appreciates his fighting abilities.

“Regardless of whether I like somebody or not, I can’t knock their talent or what they’re good at,” Parry told WWE commentator and former BAMMA presenter Andy Shepherd on the “People I Want To Be Friends With” podcast. “The guy’s a remarkable athlete. He’s got everything. Everything you could possibly want in a complete athlete, he’s got it. Even down to the negatives outside of the cage, he’s got that. Every great’s had it. Mike Tyson had it. Every great has had some sort of turmoil or trouble outside of their profession.

“I just don’t think he’s the sort of person that could ever change. He is what he is, and that’s what makes him as good as he is. It makes him great. He’ll be a legend of the sport – no one’s doing what he’s doing. But he will never, ever be, ever, a good man. And I would much rather people to be a good man than be a remarkable Hall of Fame athlete, because that comes and goes, and then you’re forgotten about. You’re just a number up in the rafters. But you’ll always be a good man through your life – and he’s not.”

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Lewis-Parry explained that Jones’ first concern after his well publicized 2015 hit-and-run incident that left a pregnant woman injured showed how the UFC star’s priorities had become skewed.

“We’ve all got little things that we do or people we’ve upset, we haven’t said the right thing, or we’ve done the wrong thing. But are you good?” Lewis-Parry said. “Are you a good person? Do you look at yourself and go, ‘I’m good, because you know what? I’ll do the right thing.’

“If I crashed into a woman, and she was pregnant – pregnant or not, if I crashed into a woman or a man – I’m not running away. Even if I didn’t have insurance or a valid license, or I was in somebody else’s car, I’m not running away, because that is the wrong thing to do. Especially if you know someone could be hurt.

“That’s not a good soul. A good soul would not do that. He was more worried about himself and getting caught and ruining what he’s got going on than he was about the lives of two people in that car, and one that hasn’t even had the chance to experience life yet. The shock alone could have killed that baby. I couldn’t live with that.”

Lewis-Parry said that he would still very much like to face Jones in the cage one day to finally put to rest their beef that stemmed from abusive private messages he says he received from Jones. But he also said that, despite what he called his “genuine dislike,” if Jones ever reached out to him with a plea for personal help, he would answer the call and do what he could.

“Oh, 100 percent. Because if you’re humble enough that you can approach me and say, ‘Do you know what? It was a bit effed-up what I did, what I said. I apologize. But you don’t understand the life that I live. I’m constantly under scrutiny, under pressure. I’ve got this fame and this access to all of these vices.’ I can say, ‘You know what? I don’t understand that, because I don’t have that. But maybe manage the way you talk to people,’” Lewis-Parry explained. “And I would say ‘cool.’ Because, in the initial instance, I didn’t have a problem with the guy. I didn’t even know him. He brought me into this.

“So if the guy can hold his hands up and say, ‘I was wrong. Have you got any advice?’ Or ‘Can you recommend anything?’ Or ‘Do you know anybody that can help?’ No problem, mate. Because I don’t hate anybody. I don’t hold on to hate. But you’re not going to mug me off. I’m not going to have that. It’s a respect thing.”