Extreme talent is, in a way, a curse; a crushing weight of expectation that follows you around in every moment, through every circumstance. It’s a phenomenon Jon Jones knows well. He was a transcendent talent from the beginning, and even through times of trouble that dotted his personal life, Jones proved undeniably brilliant when he entered the cage.
Saturday marked the end of the longest layoff of his career—476 days since he defeated Daniel Cormier, the man he had been scheduled to face at UFC 197. It was supposed to be the completion of the circle, Jones’ return to glory and the UFC light-heavyweight championship. Instead, he got what many viewed as a tuneup bout, this despite the fact that his replacement opponent, Ovince Saint Preux, came into the match ranked No. 6 in the world.
A tuneup bout.
Against No. 6 in the world.
These are the kind of expectations he faces.
The fight followed that blueprint. As expected, Jones won, capturing every round on the scorecards in Las Vegas.
He did this despite the fact that he was far from his best self. He was tentative and rusty in the early going, and his timing was off by a tick.
His face said it all at the final horn with a grimace and a quick shake of the head. As if to ensure we weren’t incorrectly reading his body language, he turned directly to the TV camera and said, “I have a lot of work to do.”
Duly noted.
You would have thought it was all bad news.
The reality of the situation is that as great as Jones is—and he may well be the best fighter ever—he is human. He bleeds. He occasionally makes bad life decisions, and, yes, he too can suffer through ring rust.
In a division where the margin for error is slim, Jones wins and wins and wins. Even when he is at his worst, he is capable of dominating. The final scores against Saint Preux were 50-44, 50-45, 50-45.
What does that mean for Cormier, who was sitting cageside to witness it all? Jones has already beaten him, and has done so fairly decisively. In a way, this twist was cruel. Cormier would have had a better chance to beat Jones coming off this long layoff. Instead, he’ll get Jones with five rounds under his belt.
And you could already see his progression as the fight went on.
While Jones was slow on the trigger over the course of the first 15 minutes—”Really I was just watching instead of reacting,” he told UFC announcer Joe Rogan after the fight—he seemed to get loose over the last 10, taking down Saint Preux multiple times, slamming those sharp elbows into OSP’s mug, smashing him to the body and legs with an onslaught of kicks.
By the end, Saint Preux’s left arm was dangling, broken, and he was celebrating just surviving the 25 minutes.
It was the kind of in-fight recalibration Jones often pulls off but rarely gets credit for, and it bodes well for his rematch with Cormier.
“I would have beat him pretty good,” Jones said of his original opponent. “I was tuned up to fight Cormier. I had techniques, angles and ideas we’d been working for DC for over seven months. I’ve been training for one fighter and they throw me this heavy hitter. I believe I can beat DC right now.”
You couldn’t blame Jones for his slight troubles with Saint Preux. The matchup, after all, came about as something of a fluke.
After Cormier was injured in training, the UFC looked up and down its light-heavyweight top 10, and Saint Preux was the highest-ranked fighter available.
While Saint Preux has had some impressive finishes, he came into the bout with only one truly notable victory, when he knocked out Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in November 2014. In his two other bouts against ranked opponents, he lost to Glover Teixeira and Ryan Bader, respectively, two guys Jones has manhandled in the past.
Those previous results led to Saturday’s expectations, even though Jones had so many distractions between then and now.
Jones’ life since his last bout has landed him in the tabloids as often as sports sections. Just days after defeating Cormier at UFC 182, it was announced that he failed a pre-fight drug test after cocaine metabolites were found in his sample. He soon checked into rehab and stayed for only one day, drawing criticism from those who questioned his motivation for entering in the first place.
In April, he was involved in a hit-and-run, later turning himself in and eventually pleading guilty to a felony charge of leaving the scene of an accident. That incident led to the UFC stripping him of his belt. In January 2016, he was cited for driving without a license, among other infractions. And just last month, he was arrested after being ticketed for drag racing, a potential violation of his probation.
With most of those troubles behind him, Jones finally got to concentrate on fighting. And now, with his ring rust behind him, he can finally concentrate on Cormier. The expectation, after all, is set.
“I feel like I’ve gotten a lot better,” he said in the post-fight press conference. “I think you guys will see that when I fight Daniel Cormier. I’ve been working so hard to beat Daniel. You’ll see that. I feel like I’m going to pick him part, that I’m gone to outwrestling him. I feel like I’m going to beat him up really, really bad.”
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