On Saturday night, Jon Jones proved all the doubters wrong—again—as he submitted Lyoto Machida in the second round to become the first man to defend the light heavyweight title more than once since Chuck Liddell in 2006.
Jones appeared to be in a bit of trouble in the first round, but he came back in resounding fashion in the second. He rocked Machida with a punch that set up the fight-ending standing guillotine choke.
He has now beaten three of the top five contenders in the light heavyweight division, and has looked simply unstoppable.
At only 24 years old, and with the frame that he has, it is very likely that he will have to move up to heavyweight at some point in the future.
So how would Jones fare at heavyweight?
For right now, it is a difficult question to answer. If you look at two of the top four heavyweights—Cain Velasquez and Brock Lesnar—both are highly credentialed wrestlers.
Jones is yet to face someone of that caliber. Once he fights Evans, we’ll have a clearer picture of how Jones will fare against wrestlers.
Then there is Junior dos Santos. JDS is undefeated in the UFC, and is another fighter who made his way to the top without ever being in trouble.
We need to see more of Dos Santos, and more of Jones, before we can even begin to make a prediction about how a matchup like this would go down.
There is no question that Jones would be a top heavyweight, it’s just a question of how close to the top.
He has all the potential to be the heavyweight champion. If he could handle the wrestling of Lesnar and Velasquez, and if he could avoid the big right hand of JDS, Jones could become the most dominant fighter ever—in both the heavyweight and light heavyweight divisions.
Tim McTiernan is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. For the latest news on everything MMA, follow me on twitter @tmt2393.
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