The greatest fighter in mixed martial arts history was kind of a mess. We know that now.
He’s had two arrests, a positive drug test, a press conference brawl. Not exactly the behavior of someone who is in total control of himself. Nothing close to a reflection of the professionalism and composure he brings with him in the cage, when he seems to take control of everything.
The contrast in personalities—or maybe the dual personality—is exactly what makes his athletic success so stunning.
With all of the turmoil swirling around and within him, Jones has still easily managed to become the best mixed martial arts prizefighter we’ve seen. In 22 fights, he’s had fewer troublesome moments than personal controversies.
In the Octagon, he is a master. He makes the chaos work for him.
Jones was reinstated to the active roster on Oct. 23. In a statement, he promised he’d grown as a person and would embrace this new chapter, and all the sorts of things that someone in this situation is supposed to say.
Hopefully, there are some meaningful actions behind his words—mostly because Jones has a lot more riding on his behavior than his career.
But when it comes to his career, what happens if he does live up to his words? What happens if he manages to find calm away from the cage? Who has a prayer of stopping a focused and dedicated Jones?
Remember, the closest fight of his career was the unanimous-decision win over Alexander Gustafsson, and word on the street is that Jones hardly trained for that one, that he never really took the Swede seriously until he was in the thick of it.
And when that happened, what took place? Jones only gutted out the fifth round, icing the fight after wobbling Gustafsson with a vicious spinning back elbow. He rose to the occasion.
At the time, that was really the last question we had about his fight game. He’d faced every other kind of competitive situation. He’d fought on short notice. He’d squared up with southpaws. He’d faced wrestlers and strikers, rookies and veterans, at sea level and altitude.
He once won despite a dislocated toe (warning: graphic image) so gnarly it looked like it was about to fall off.
But people still wondered how he would respond with everything on the line, with the pressure palpable in the moment.
We left with the answer: The only thing that could stop Jon Jones is Jon Jones.
That turned out to be true in a way we didn’t expect. Jones’ hit-and-run—he eventually pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and can avoid a felony charge on his record by living up to probationary conditions—led to the end of his historic UFC light heavyweight title reign when the promotion stripped him of the belt.
One day in the future, we may look back on the title-stripping with the same contempt most hold for his lone career loss, a disqualification due to downward elbow strikes in a fight he was unconditionally dominating. A DQ, by the way, that may look even more ridiculous soon, given the Association of Boxing Commissions rules and regulations committee’s recent pledge to reexamine its outlawing.
Jones’ title absence may also eventually seem more like absurd bureaucracy than meaningful result.
To be sure, Jones deserved some penalty for his criminal transgression. The unfairness of the UFC’s decision to strip him comes from the fact that there is no true process in their penalization, no guidelines, no method of appeal for the athletes. It is mostly subject to the company’s whim.
That’s beside the point now anyway, and eventually it’ll perhaps be a footnote.
By the time Jones steps back in the cage, he will have lost a year of time. However, he’ll still be only 28 years old. It goes without saying that’s not over the hill, but in fact, it is probably just nearing his prime.
Among the 11 current UFC champions, only women’s flyweight Joanna Jedrzejczyk (28 years, two months) and interim featherweight champ Conor McGregor (27 years, three months) are younger. In fact, the average age of the current UFC champions is 31 years and two months—nearly three years older than Jones (28 years and three months).
Moreover, the heavier weight classes have always skewed toward older champions:
- Current light heavyweight champ Daniel Cormier is 36-and-a-half.
- When Mauricio “Shogun” Rua won the belt prior to Jones’ reign, he was 28-and-a-half.
- Before him, Lyoto Machida was a few days shy of 31 when he captured the belt.
- Rashad Evans was 29 years old.
- Forrest Griffin had just celebrated his 29th birthday.
- Quinton “Rampage” Jackson was just days from being 29.
- Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture were in their mid- and late 30s, respectively.
If Jones felt like jumping up to heavyweight, Junior Dos Santos was the only divisional champion in the last decade to win the belt at a younger age than Jones is now.
On top of it, after all this time away, his body is likely to be refreshed. Pointing in that direction, we’ve already seen the videos of him looking to be seriously working out and adding muscle.
Even beyond this evidence, there’s little to suggest the rest of the division has caught up to him. Jones has beaten most of the top 10 already. Beyond an interesting style clash with Anthony Johnson, who has some work to do to get to Jones, there isn’t anyone bringing anything new to him.
Cormier may have the title for now, but their first fight wasn’t that close, and it’s difficult to imagine Cormier erasing that gap in a matter of months.
Jones was already historically good before his life spiraled out of control. If his court case and suspension were the wake-up calls he suggests they were, if he truly prizes this opportunity and finds focus, the man who was already MMA‘s greatest could write an even greater second act.
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