Jon Jones is the hottest rising star in MMA, and a darling of the fans and media. He’s an unorthodox fighter; charming, respectful and humble.
Inside the cage he is a phenom that has seemed to outclass every opponent he’s faced by wider and wider margins, and his career has taken off. His displays in and out of the cage are almost too good to be true. He now stands close to the summit of the most competitive division in the UFC, and he’s just 23 years old.
By Michael Cunningham
Jon ‘Bones’ Jones continued his meteoric rise in the UFC light heavyweight division after physically dominating the powerful Ryan Bader at UFC 126 recently.
Bader, the undefeated collegiate wrestling All-American, was manhandled throughout the fight. Bader’s takedown wasn’t happening and Jones seemed to land his blows at will.
After softening Bader up with strikes he finished him with a modified guillotine choke and, once again, Jones breezed through yet another top contender. During the post-fight interview, Jones had his dreams answered when Joe Rogan told him he was being offered a title shot against Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, in place of injured team-mate Rashad Evans at UFC 128. After only three years in the sport, Jones will receive his first shot at a championship.
The Jon Jones hype train has now moved into overdrive, with Jones already being installed as a slight favourite in the fight, as Rua has been laid off with yet another knee injury, something that has plagued his career since he fought in Japan.
Rising Star
The demolition jobs that Jones has delivered in his recent performances have been incredibly impressive.
Jones was supposed to be thrown to the lions when he fought UFC stalwart Stephan Bonnar. Instead, he exploded in the consciousness of the MMA community, dazzling with spinning back elbows and a Greco roman-style suplex. The only blip in his career being a disqualification loss to Matt Hamill for an illegal elbow.
Jones explosion . . . performing the Greco roman-style suplex on Stephan Bonnar
Up until the fight was stopped he tossed Hamill around in a way no opponent ever has. He then battered another durable veteran Vladimir Matyushenko and almost caved in one side of Brandon Vera’s face with an elbow.
Jones has acquired hardly any damage in his career to this point, never having even taken a big shot. This is, in part, due to his ridiculous 84.5 inch reach, giving him an advantage against any opponent in the 205lb division and also in part to his highly unorthodox style.
Jones claimed that he had never trained the choke he used to submit Bader, he simply watched Geroges St-Pierre perform it while they were in camp together. If this is true it makes Jones a very special fighter indeed. His technique is excellent but he also has an intuitive aspect to his style allowing him to adapt to different situations.
Advantage Jones?
All these factors, coupled with the change in opponent, would seem to present more problems for the champion Shogun in this fight.
Shogun’s Muay Thai style is very aggressive, he hit Lyoto Machida more times in their first fight than Machida had ever been hit in all his UFC fights combined. While Jones has enough confidence in his ability to try anything in the middle of a fight and, as he has continuously demonstrated, the skill to execute it.
Shogun may have much more experience than Jones, but then so did all of his previous opponents and that didn’t seem to matter much. Rua will need to show up like he did in his PRIDE days because the fighter that showed up against Mark Coleman and Forrest Griffin could be in for a very short and painful night against Jones.
Here are some of Jones’ career highlights:
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