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There are several reasons for Jon Jones to stay at light heavyweight for the foreseeable future.
There have been calls over the past few years for UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones to move to heavyweight. The volume of those voices increased in the lead up to Saturday’s UFC 247 fight card. After Jones defeated Dominick Reyes by unanimous decision, the appeals continued. While I understand the requests, I can’t say I agree that Jones needs to — or should even consider — making the jump to the 265-pound weight class.
Jones might be the king of the 205-pound division, but the claim that the 14-time title fight winner has nothing left to prove at light heavyweight is a falsehood.
The split decision victory Jones earned over Thiago Santos in July and the close win the champion booked on Saturday are proof Jones needs to clean out the division before he should move to heavyweight. That means facing the winner of this week’s matchup between Corey Anderson and Jan Blachowicz and running things back with both Santos and Reyes.
While Jones faces that trio of competitors, there is the potential that some fresh contenders could rise through the light heavyweight rankings and develop into potential title challengers, for instance, fighters such as Aleksandar Rakic and Johnny Walker, who are still developing.
The reason Jones needs to clean out the division is the current generation of contenders has explicitly been training to defeat Jones for their entire MMA careers. Look at Reyes. He made his MMA debut, not his UFC debut, but his MMA debut, in December 2014. By then Jones had been the UFC light heavyweight champion for three years and had racked up championship wins over Mauricio Rua, Quinton Jackson, Lyoto Machida, Vitor Belfort, Chael Sonnen, Alexander Gustafsson and Glover Teixeira. He was also less than a month away from beating Daniel Cormier. Santos’ debut was in 2010, Rakic debuted in 2011 and Anderson and Walker both debuted in 2013.
With all of these men watching Jones for seven to 10 years, that’s a lot of time spent game planning for one specific fighter, especially when you think about the fact someone like Reyes wasn’t probably even on Jones’ radar until late 2018 at the earliest.
It could be argued that none of the contenders named above can beat Jones. On paper that might be true, but let’s not forget that some oddsmakers had Jones a 7-1 favorite over Santos and a 5-2 favorite over Reyes. There‘s a legit argument to be made that these fights need to play out if Jones wants to solidify his standing as the 205-pound GOAT. And let‘s be honest, that crown has some dents in it these days.
I don’t buy the idea that Jones moving up to heavyweight helps his legacy. That might be true in one of two scenarios. The first is if he moves up in weight and fights his way to a title shot. I’m not talking one or two wins, I’m advocating that Jones should work his way from outside the top-10 and through the best of the division before he gets a shot at heavyweight gold. The other scenario is Jones moves up to heavyweight, gets a title shot, wins the title and then defends that title a few times against the best of the division. A one-off fight against the champion of the division looks good on a resume, but without a defense, it proves nothing more than one fighter was better than another on a specific night. And let’s forget the idea of a two-division champion, that’s not going to fly, as we have learned.
The final reason for Jones not to move up in weight is financial. One reason Floyd Mayweather walked away from boxing with a perfect record and a good chunk of change was favorable matchmaking. When Jones first got into MMA, it was to provide financially for his family. He managed to do that by winning the UFC title early in his career. Jones’ family has grown and so has the team around him during his time at the top of the division. A machine like Team Jones can’t be a cheap one to maintain, as such, Jones needs to fight to keep that machine humming. His days of blue-chip sponsors are likely behind him thanks to the multiple mistakes he‘s made outside the Octagon. A move to heavyweight could be a risky one both financially and health-wise. It’s more prudent and more economically viable for Jones to fight safely like he has been doing at light heavyweight. That style allows him to stay relatively healthy and also to fight more often.
Right now Jones has no real reason or motivation to move up a weight class other than to please some fans and media. If we know anything about Jones, it’s that he’s not often concerned about how others view him, at least not for any sustained amount of time. If and when Jones wants to make a permanent move to heavyweight he will, until then, let’s see how he deals with the upcoming generation of light heavyweights who have all trained to end his run atop the division.