Jon Jones is the man we just love to hate

In the UFC 182 post-fight press conference, Jon Jones said that he watches his opponents so much before a fight that he “subconsciously inherits their talents.” That’s a particularly interesting thing to say, not just because it implies he kills them in advance and superimposes himself into their wills, but because it felt like, in the sea of things said, he was telling the truth.

Jones, for the most part, outwrestled the wrestler Daniel Cormier. He also beat Cormier on Saturday night to retain his title. It was supposed to be his toughest test to date, but, there again, Jones said afterwards it really wasn’t. The guy to give him the most resistance in the cage was Alexander Gustafsson, who is fighting Anthony Johnson in a couple of weeks in Sweden. Should Jones and Gustafsson meet in a sequel to their 2013 bout, Jones will have long inherited his talents.

And you know what — at this point, it’s easy to believe whatever Jones wants to tell us about his superiority in the Octagon. His eighth title defense was a thing of cruel majesty. He and Cormier met in the center of the cage with the intention or ruining each other. Cormier didn’t want to knock Jones out, he wanted to beat him for five rounds, to sap his will and break him. Instead the opposite happened. Jones took Cormier’s absolute best shot, his every dream and delusion, and still won four of the five rounds. That’s a haunting thing to have happen. If there was melancholy in the aftermath it was in the idea that Cormier poured his soul into something and was only 20 percent effective.

That’s the kind of champion that sits at the top of the 205-pound weight class. A truly dominant fighter who uses his long arms to reach deep into an ever-expanding bag of tricks. Jones is one for the ages.

And like other men who were for the ages, a lot of people can’t help but hate him. Why this is the case has become its own fun guessing game. Maybe it all stems back to the Rashad Evans double-cross, back when he vowed never to fight Evans and then had a change of heart. Evans made sure that people knew Jones was not only a traitor but a “phony.” That didn’t help. Or maybe it was because after he dropped a limp Lyoto Machida and strode off like a man of zero conscience, his coach Greg Jackson told him to “go check on Lyoto” to “make some fans.”

That didn’t sit well with people.

Nor did it sit well with anyone when UFC 151 fell out of existence because Jones refused to fight Chael Sonnen on short notice when Dan Henderson got hurt. Dana White made it clear that time that Jones could have saved an event, but opted not to. Jones and his camp became the subject of great mumbling after that.

Maybe it was because of the leaked ESPN footage, when the other Jones showed up and threatened to kill Cormier. That was the Jones we suspected existed behind The Brand all along. It could be that he’s too openly religious in the age of Google, or too hypercritical in the eyes of the religious, or too conveniently all things at once to be considered anything at all.

It could be that he ruins a lot of parlays. We could play this game all day long.

But most likely it’s because Jones is just that great in a young sport that is still defining the barriers of greatness. He is, for lack of a better word, unknowable. People cannot relate to his controlled wilderness, his ascension in the game, or his manner of dealing with it all. The idea is to humanize Jones, and yet he just won’t comply. Each time an articulate everyman comes around — people like Cormier, who can out-genuine him eight days a week — he reminds us of the gulf between him and everybody else in competition.

For whatever reason you hate Jon Jones, you can’t deny his work in the cage. Jones simply won’t be denied. Maybe that’s the true source for why people hate him — because he won’t fall on his face like an actual human being. He has no ability to inherit our talents in that way, subconsciously or otherwise.

And right now it’s easy to hate on Jon Jones for refusing to come down to Earth, which is sort of mind-blowing when you think about it.

In the UFC 182 post-fight press conference, Jon Jones said that he watches his opponents so much before a fight that he “subconsciously inherits their talents.” That’s a particularly interesting thing to say, not just because it implies he kills them in advance and superimposes himself into their wills, but because it felt like, in the sea of things said, he was telling the truth.

Jones, for the most part, outwrestled the wrestler Daniel Cormier. He also beat Cormier on Saturday night to retain his title. It was supposed to be his toughest test to date, but, there again, Jones said afterwards it really wasn’t. The guy to give him the most resistance in the cage was Alexander Gustafsson, who is fighting Anthony Johnson in a couple of weeks in Sweden. Should Jones and Gustafsson meet in a sequel to their 2013 bout, Jones will have long inherited his talents.

And you know what — at this point, it’s easy to believe whatever Jones wants to tell us about his superiority in the Octagon. His eighth title defense was a thing of cruel majesty. He and Cormier met in the center of the cage with the intention or ruining each other. Cormier didn’t want to knock Jones out, he wanted to beat him for five rounds, to sap his will and break him. Instead the opposite happened. Jones took Cormier’s absolute best shot, his every dream and delusion, and still won four of the five rounds. That’s a haunting thing to have happen. If there was melancholy in the aftermath it was in the idea that Cormier poured his soul into something and was only 20 percent effective.

That’s the kind of champion that sits at the top of the 205-pound weight class. A truly dominant fighter who uses his long arms to reach deep into an ever-expanding bag of tricks. Jones is one for the ages.

And like other men who were for the ages, a lot of people can’t help but hate him. Why this is the case has become its own fun guessing game. Maybe it all stems back to the Rashad Evans double-cross, back when he vowed never to fight Evans and then had a change of heart. Evans made sure that people knew Jones was not only a traitor but a “phony.” That didn’t help. Or maybe it was because after he dropped a limp Lyoto Machida and strode off like a man of zero conscience, his coach Greg Jackson told him to “go check on Lyoto” to “make some fans.”

That didn’t sit well with people.

Nor did it sit well with anyone when UFC 151 fell out of existence because Jones refused to fight Chael Sonnen on short notice when Dan Henderson got hurt. Dana White made it clear that time that Jones could have saved an event, but opted not to. Jones and his camp became the subject of great mumbling after that.

Maybe it was because of the leaked ESPN footage, when the other Jones showed up and threatened to kill Cormier. That was the Jones we suspected existed behind The Brand all along. It could be that he’s too openly religious in the age of Google, or too hypercritical in the eyes of the religious, or too conveniently all things at once to be considered anything at all.

It could be that he ruins a lot of parlays. We could play this game all day long.

But most likely it’s because Jones is just that great in a young sport that is still defining the barriers of greatness. He is, for lack of a better word, unknowable. People cannot relate to his controlled wilderness, his ascension in the game, or his manner of dealing with it all. The idea is to humanize Jones, and yet he just won’t comply. Each time an articulate everyman comes around — people like Cormier, who can out-genuine him eight days a week — he reminds us of the gulf between him and everybody else in competition.

For whatever reason you hate Jon Jones, you can’t deny his work in the cage. Jones simply won’t be denied. Maybe that’s the true source for why people hate him — because he won’t fall on his face like an actual human being. He has no ability to inherit our talents in that way, subconsciously or otherwise.

And right now it’s easy to hate on Jon Jones for refusing to come down to Earth, which is sort of mind-blowing when you think about it.