Why Jon Jones Isn’t the Greatest of All Time . . . Yet

My intention when writing Sunday’s piece was to write a post-fight analysis for UFC Fight Night 79 hopefully breaking down a war between Max Holloway and Charles Oliveira. Instead I realized not only had I misjudged the day of the event (which was a Sunday rather than a Saturday) but I’d also misjudged the week as well! So in an attempt to produce content for my readers as well as capitalize on the fervor surrounding Anderson Silva following is NSAC hearing, I produced a piece on why we should let it go since Anderson was never the Greatest of All Time.

Well, it blew up.

There’s been plenty of debate with a fair share of readers falling on one side of the fence or the other but there was one question that rang louder than the rest: Where is Jon “Bones” Jones? I had named Fedor Emelianenko as my GoAT with Georges St. Pierre in second place but no mention of Jon Jones. Well, there’s a good reason for that.

Let me start by conceding the obvious: Jon Jones is the best light heavyweight in the history of the sport and the most dominant champion of the UFC’s modern era. He is a freak of an athlete, a terrifyingly good wrestler, helped popularize the front kick to the knee and was essentially undefeated in his MMA career.

So why isn’t he the GoAT?

The shallowest reason is the “skill set” argument I offered in my Anderson Silva analysis. Prodigiously skilled as Jon Jones is, the man can’t box. Granted he never needed to; he is the best example of using range in MMA and more or less invented kicks on the fly. I wouldn’t ask Thomas Hearns to fight on the inside or Chad Mendes to out-jab opponents, so I certainly wouldn’t make Jones box. That being said, watching him flail in the first 3 rounds against Alexander Gustafsson was borderline upsetting to watch.

And the competition?

Well, the light heavyweight division suffered a total loss of depth that coincided with his title reign. Yet weirdly the commentators have rattled off his kill list in comparison to Fedor and GSP’s and think it’s comparable. Perhaps I’m a cynic, but I don’t think Jones’s list is as impressive as people claim it is. If I had to name Jones’s true “high” level wins I’d list Lyoto Machida, Alexander Gustafsson and Daniel Cormier and end the list right there.

A respectable trio yes, but not a group that propels a fighter into GoAT contention.

Even with his masterful pair of fights against Lyoto Machida, it was clear Shogun Rua was an old man after recovering from surgery. His legs and cardio were absolutely shot and people tend to forget that Jones was actually the favorite with many pundits and betting houses before the fight. It was the win ushered in a reign of terror but in retrospect it wasn’t too impressive.

Rashad Evans is a fighter I’ve always been on the fence about. He is a superb athlete but his tendency to bring his head bolt upright whenever he was getting ready to strike started haunting him. He looked borderline impotent against both Lil’ Nog and Dan Henderson but was spoon fed Chael Sonnen in what proved to be an easy victory.

Oh and speaking of Sonnen, he is not a quality opponent at light heavyweight. At middleweight he was likely the best wrestler the division ever saw but was too slow at light heavyweight to pose much of a threat to the best. The Jones loss was easy enough to write off but once Rashad Evans did almost the exact same thing, it was clear that his beautiful double leg wasn’t enough to compensate for his lackluster striking and footwork against naturally larger men.

Glover Teixeira is another fighter I’m on the fence about. He is immensely skilled but his best win is over Ovince Saint Preux which, as I took pains to point out, is reasonably easy if you know how to fight him. By virtue of Teixeira being a “maybe”, Rampage Jackson cannot make the list. He’s a legend, a fan favorite but the fact is that Rampage depended on his boxing and nothing else and found himself completely outmatched against better boxers who could mix in wrestling (like Glover).

In reality, a large part of deciding whether or not Jones is the GoAT is determined by factors out of his control.

He had had the misfortune of starting his reign when the best light heavyweights were falling out of their primes. Shogun could never reclaim his Pride FC form while Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz were long past competitiveness. Fedor got to fight the best Antonio Nogueira and Mirko Cro Cop and Georges St. Pierre at least got to napalm Matt Hughes twice.

And then there’s the matter of the waiting game to figure out how good his opponents were.

Will Rashad Evans regain his stride and keep his head off the centerline when punching? Will Texeira get back into championship contention and fare better against Cormier/Gustafsson? Will Rumble shore up the defensive wrestling holes in his game and put together a good streak? Is Cormier really a champion? Hell, even Rampage showed off knees and kicks in his win over Fabio Maldonado.

If any two of those scenarios occurs, I wouldn’t be excluding Jones from the GoAT conversation.

Jon Jones is the greatest light heavyweight the sport ever saw. His personal life and attitude aside, he’s done what no other light heavyweight could. So now we simply sit and wait. Were his opponents overhyped in a shallow division, or truly world beaters?

Jones’s GoAT status will rest on the result.

Siri Karri

Siri is a mixed martial arts and video game aficionado, but only had the physique for the latter. Proudly goofy and reluctantly pudgy, he tackles writing in the same way he tackles a burger; enthusiastically but with adult supervision.