Stephen R. Sylvanie – USA TODAY Sports
Phil and David breakdown everything you need to know about Jon Jones vs. Dominick Reyes for UFC 247 in Houston, and everything you don’t about public sector versus private sector myths.
Jon Jones vs. Dominick Reyes headlines UFC 247 this February 8, 2020 at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas..
One sentence summary
David: From GOAT, to (maybe) MOAT
Phil: Up against the LHW GOAT, an upstart challenger attempts to pull off an upset which honestly can’t in any way be nearly as funny as Thiago Santos winning would have been *grumble grumble stupid random injury rassum frassum*
Stats
Record: Jon Jones 25-1-1 NC Dominick Reyes 12-0
Odds: Jon Jones -450 Dominick Reyes +360
History / Introduction to the fighters
David: Jones might have been a tragic tale of wasted youth, but the cliche has since passed. However, you wouldn’t know it from his last through wins. It’s your classic case of sports ethics. He was destroying people at his out of the cage worst, and now that he’s out of his cage best, he’s no longer destroying people, keeping the criticism at a nice, vibrant plateau. While there are always discussions about heavyweight, and we’re always only teased, and then there’s the Adesanya stuff; it’s felt like a series of stops and starts despite nothing but success.
Phil: Jones seems to have come to a bit of a low point in his career. Ironically, it’s come as the drug tests and the car crashes and the general drama seems to have died down. Instead of out-of-the-cage drama, we’re just getting treated to fights which… aren’t very good. His bout against Anthony Smith was a tepid (if one-sided) win where Smith visibly mentally collapsed a few minutes in. The fight against Thiago Santos was a sloppy mess where Jones was lucky to scrape a win.
David: Reyes is not a likely contender. Not because he’s not good. He very much is. But mostly because he’s simply gone about his business. Literally; the telecast is never not willing to remind us that he works multiple jobs despite being a top contender in the world’s most prestigious mixed martial arts show. So Reyes moves into a shot for gold because he hasn’t stumbled.
Phil: Dominick Reyes has had a run to the light heavyweight title which has been remarkable for its lack of drama. We’ve seen any number of moderately promising 205ers struggle in their step-ups, sometimes several times. There are your Corey Andersons and your Jan Blachowiczs and your Ryan Baders. There are new blood like Cirkunov and Rakic, and your weirdos like Krylov and Johnny Walker. As whack as 205 is, none of them were able to make it to a title shot without taking a loss or two. Reyes has done that, and that means something. Maybe.
What’s at stake?
David: It’s unfair to Jones, but the hot takes if Jones loses will be a bunch of revisionist history about his quality of competition. If he wins, then the criticism stills holds true, since Reyes’ quality as a contender remains to be determined. In that way, his legacy thus far is a lot like Fedor’s, minus the undying support Fedor had from fans (just a little more heightened).
Phil: Jones’ legacy feels a little shakier than it used to. Partially it was him going tooth and nail with a middleweight gatekeeper, and partially it’s that aforementioned suspicion that 205 just isn’t a particularly great division. His wins have aged badly, while those of his competition in the GOAT stakes (Aldo, Silva, GSP and particularly Mighty Mouse) are starting to look increasingly good.
Where do they want it?
David: He’s gone from Jon ‘Bones’ Jones to Jones Capital. Where once he was part of the new guard; creative, dynamic, and willing to pressure his way to victory in bone-crunching ways, now he’s the fighting equivalent of a venture capitalist. He waits for research and development, qualified labor, and government funding to start the actual innovation — i.e. his opponent forcing the action — and once the product (outcome) is ready for commercialization (potential victory), he finally enters the fray when the reward is now more assured. This finance analogy is disturbing, sure, but not as disturbing as the black bean lentil soup I just forgot to cool down. Wherever I’m going with this, the point is simple: Jones is content to let his opponent take all the risks, hoping the rewards of being opportunistic are enough to offset the losses within exchanges (and rounds). He can slosh just enough kicking offense to keep people at a distance, and he’s still mean enough in the clinch to make closing the distance an unappealing tactic. There’s no longer innovation to his game; just the illusion of it; he’s a fight extractor more than a fight creator. Yet for all the criticism, Jones Capital still puts money in the bank. He’s an opportunist on a sublime level. He’s fantastic at scouting his opponents, playing their game, and subverting it. And he’s also insanely durable, which rarely gets mentioned as one of his strengths.
Phil: Unbreakable durability really is the straw that stirs the drink for Jones, isn’t it? That game is well put together (at least for the era that it’s ruled over) but it wasn’t a flawlessly put together approach. Jones has eaten hard head kicks too many times to be entirely comfortable, and took big shots from big hitters. A huge part of his success has been his ability to shrug it entirely off and get back to dealing attritional volume. On that note, Jones is a nicely varied striker, mixing it up to the body and the legs, which has contributed to his ability to (almost) always win the fifth round. However, there are some significant limitations: his footwork has improved, but his punching form has remained messy and his defence in the pocket is limited to pushing people and leaning off. Beyond this, he is a remarkably one-sided fighter: he jabs from orthodox, and sets up the body kick and left straight from southpaw, but anything from the right side is either variety for variety’s sake (a jamming right kick) or a heinously ugly overhand. Jones was once a marvellous MMA wrestler, and now is… not. The defense still seems to be there, but almost all other bits of his wrestling seem to have deteriorated badly. Anthony Smith and Thiago Santos are not historically skilled defensive grapplers!
David: Reyes is a fun addition to the fight selector screen for Jon Jones: Mortal Kombat edition. He’s young, exciting, and seems fully willing to embrace his potential birthright. I’m not sure we’ve learned all that much, though. There was the Cannonier fight, in which Reyes caught a lungning, totally sloppy Jared with an awkward uppercut. There was Weidman, who got caught with a straight left as Reyes was going backwards; a kill shot to punctuate the death state Weidman was already in before he entered the cage. And then there was the OSP and Oezdemir fights. Reyes has a talent, and that’s to force small bubbles of action into a action-reaction tug of war. On a technical level, I guess I just don’t see what others see. Despite his ability to counterstrike, he doesn’t always have those counterstriking instincts. In fact, he’s prone to waltzing into a punch entry the way Chris Leben used to (less sloppily, of course). He doesn’t have the head movement of a natural counterstriker either. What he does have, is the ability to create those death pockets: forcing small exchanges into bigger ones that are ideally parried into better opportunities for more violent counters. It’s kind of like improvised counterstriking, if you will. That makes Reyes unique, even if
Phil: The first thing you might think when you look at Dominick Reyes is: this guy is nothing particularly special. And you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. And that’s OK! He’s merely someone who has come up in a particularly weird and technically janky division who happens to resemble a decent fighter, with solid athleticism, and good instincts. That’s pretty much it! He’s a clean, straight puncher who could serve to throw a few more combinations, and a willing kicker who occasionally gets himself out of position. He has natural power, and while his takedown defense (most notably in the body lock by the cage) is a concern, he shows admirable urgency in fighting grips and scrambling to the fence if he ever gets taken down. While he has gone down on multiple occasions (Jeremy Kimball!) it’s never been for long. The southpaw attack does seem like it will play well against Jones, who is, as mentioned, rather uncomfortable against it: he doesn’t like to jab in open stance, preferring to hand-fight, and Reyes should be able to up-jab or hook in order to herd Jones into the followup left straight or high kick.
Insight from past fights
David: It’s the kind of thing that you hear critics talk about — “Jones is a shitty striker who has Dhalsim legs enough to avoid getting exposed on the feet, and brutal enough chokes to turn a tepid transition into an emphatic finish” — that has a real truth. And it carries more weight because when I think the top of the light heavyweight division, Anthony Smith and Thiago Santos are not who I think about. But I kind of don’t understand the belief that Reyes is the guy to take Bones down. If Reyes were coming off his win over Volkan Oezdemir, I think people would have a very different perspective on his chances with Jones. Instead he’s coming off a dramatic KO win over upjumped middleweight on borrowed time, Chris Weidman…so…he doesn’t? I don’t get it. Jones has looked “bad” against Gustafsson (who pressured), Smith (who didn’t), and Santos (who could only pressure). Maybe Reyes falling somewhere between Gustafsson and Smith on the pressure meter is what makes people optimistic, but Reyes just doesn’t cover enough distance for my liking. His counterstriking is like Whataburger: a big deal for locals (I’m Texan, and I don’t think Whataburger is all that; @ me burger plebes!), but nothing special once you cover enough radius. Jones covers a lot of space, and he doesn’t do it bulling forward the way Reyes’ previous opponents did. Reyes would have to show me something he does proficiently when he’s initiating for me to think he could win this one. I don’t think he does. Also, what’s a good example of British food that people think is better than it really is? Because I read this article and feel like an expert. Also, Snert sounds extremely delicious once you get past the mucous(y) name. Or is that also just me?
Phil: Looking at the list, I would say probably cauliflower cheese, but that is looking like it’s firmly mid-table in the delicous snacks list. I would also cautiously raise the counter-argument to that otherwise compelling theory that sensuality and lack of repression = good cooking in the form of one word: Japan. Anyway, my insight from past fights is that Jon Jones should have lost to Thiago Santos. Thiago Santos! I love Thiago Santos. He is my favourite light heavyweight. But… Thiago Santos!
X-Factors
David: I’m not sure. Jon Jones was always a great tactical fighter in his prime. A fighter that was more parts than sum. As he’s dealt with the drama outside of the cage, I wonder if his decline in performance has as much to do with the general athletic decline as the way his mentality has shifted. There are no more “haters” — just fans disappointed in what he pissed away. For a fighter so tightly-connected to his state of mind, I think that’s a reasonable theory.
Phil: Jones has been super weird in the run-up to this fight. Rarely have I seen him project so much. The lightweight champion of the UFC called Reyes “a big fish in a small pond.” Then there was this particular gem: “If he was so badass he would’ve won the California state wrestling championships, he would’ve went division one, He would have at least made a practice squad for the NFL. This man is delusional” Jones of course never won state wrestling championships, or progressed beyond JUCO, and was overshadowed by his brothers on the football field. The way he has listed out his own insecurities is genuinely impressive. Finally, there was the whole: “Reyes is immature and has stanky breath” thing. I’m not necessarily reading that Jones has mentally collapsed or has a Tyler Durden thing going on where his own flaws are being reincarnated in the man in front of him: he might be taking all this weirdness in as fuel, so that he shows up in the best shape of his life. It is just weird.
Prognostication
Phil: Jon Jones’ skillset has eroded. He increasingly looks like someone who is just an OK kickboxer, one made to beat up on orthodox opponents who chase him around the cage. His clinch and wrestling has deteriorated, and only supreme durability, conditioning and an eye for varied shot selection have kept him as champion. I don’t trust him against a big, powerful, accurate kickboxer, let alone one who will be fighting southpaw and denying him the jab while herding him into the southpaw power changeup, and attacking his legs. Perhaps Jones comes out with a great gameplan, and just mashes Reyes into the cage and works him over, but I haven’t seen good strategy (or much of anything else laudable) out of Jackson-Wink for a while. I don’t think Reyes is that amazing, but he is catching Jones at the right time, where technical and environmental entropy are doing their inevitable thing. Dominick Reyes by TKO, round 2.
David: You too??? I don’t disagree with the Jones’ criticism, but I also don’t see what makes Reyes so special here. He doesn’t pressure enough to make Jones word hard to initiate more. Which means if Jones is content to sit back, unleash kicks, and disrupt Reyes’ attack with random clinch entries and takedown attempts, what’s stopping Jones? It’s not like Reyes is particularly adept in the wrestling department (his grip control is lacking, and his defense consists of the classic Stand Up as Quick as Possible), nor does his submission defense inspire confidence against someone like Jones is creative enough to catch even those good at defending (like Machida). Reyes needs more than a counter straight left to crack Jones’ kick canopy; a fact that will be stressed more and more as the fight goes on. Jon Jones by RNC, round 4.