At UFC 135, champion Jon Jones made the first defense of his light heavyweight title when he defeated former champ Quinton “Rampage” Jackson with a fourth-round rear-naked choke—marking the first submission loss of Jackson’s career since a 2001 bout with legend Kazushi Sakuraba in his PRIDE debut.
Jones sits far and above most in his class, solely based on skill and athleticism. At 24-years-old, he remains the youngest champion on the roster and has plenty more fight left in him.
For their efforts, both Jackson and Jones received “Fight of the Night” honors in the pay-per-view headliner, with everyone overly impressed with “Bones'” performance—all but one man.
Steven Seagal, the famed action movie star, whom has recently become a sort of mixed martial arts “guru,” was overly critical of Jones’ performance, though he praised Jackson’s efforts inside the Octagon.
“Rampage had the best head movement he’s ever had and really impressed me tonight,” said Seagal, in an interview with Ariel Helwani of MMAFighting.com.
“If he would have let his hands go tonight, it would have something, for some reason he didn’t.”
It wasn’t enough though that the “Under Siege” star was taken aback by some of Jackson’s improvements, but he felt that the 33-year-old’s highlights in the bout outweighed that of Jones.
“I was more impressed with Rampage (than Jones)”, said Seagal, a 7th-dan black belt in Aikido, which in Japanese can translate to “the way of the harmonious spirit”.
“That’s the best head movement I’ve ever seen him do. If he would have let his hands go, that would have been something. Jon Jones wasn’t himself tonight.
“Jon Jones has tremendous talent and I didn’t see him do anything tonight as well as I’ve seen him do it.”
Should you question Seagal and his accolades and/or merit as a mixed martial arts aficionado?
“I’m a fighter, I fought all my life.”
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