It’s now clear why “Suga” Rashad Evans spent so much time running his mouth prior to his UFC light heavyweight title fight with Jon Jones at UFC 145 on Saturday night. It’s now clear why Evans put so much energy into calling out his former sparring par…
It’s now clear why “Suga” Rashad Evans spent so much time running his mouth prior to his UFC light heavyweight title fight with Jon Jones at UFC 145 on Saturday night. It’s now clear why Evans put so much energy into calling out his former sparring partner, suggesting to anyone who would ask (and even some who didn’t) that his buddy “Bones” had betrayed him in pursuit of the title.
Because, well, there wasn’t much else he could do to slow down Jones, much less rip the title belt off his waist. Like Shogun Rua, Rampage Jackson and Lyoto Machida before him, Evans couldn’t quite handle Jones’ size, skill, agility and length in the Octagon.
Nor could Evans cope with Jones’ elbows, which the 24-year-old put to devastating effect, on top of a barrage of punches and kicks over five punishing rounds at the Philips Arena in Atlanta, GA.
It was as thorough a beatdown as Evans has ever encountered, though Jones still praised Evans for giving him the toughest fight of his career.
True, the result didn’t look all that difficult for Jones to achieve. He failed to knock Evans out, but that hardly precluded him from earning a unanimous decision on the judges’ scorecards.
Then again, when has victory for Jones ever seemed easy to the naked eye? Of his previous 15 wins, only two had gone the distance.
And his one career defeat came by disqualification, for hammering Matt Hamill too viciously with those same elbows (or, an obscure rules violation) that did so much damage to Suga Rashad.
It’s tough to blame Evans, then, for trashing Jones as he did for so long. The only chance he ever had of breaking Bones’ stranglehold on the light heavyweight division was if he somehow found a way into his head.
Which is to say, Evans never had a chance. Though the credit to Jones should far outweigh any blame that might fall on Rashad’s slumped shoulders.
Jon Jones wears many flattering descriptions—UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, the youngest champion in the organization’s history and the biggest, brightest star in the mixed martial arts constellation to name a few.As of his throttling of No. 1 c…
Jon Jones wears many flattering descriptions—UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, the youngest champion in the organization’s history and the biggest, brightest star in the mixed martial arts constellation to name a few.
As of his throttling of No. 1 contender and former training partner Rashad Evans, you can add another one: unbeatable.
At least by another 205-pounder.
That’s not to say Bones can’t possibly lose as a light heavyweight. As we’ve seen proven over and over and over again in the fight game, anyone can lose to anyone else on any given occasion. However, if Jonny’s ever going to eat a legitimate loss at 205—forget the disqualification versus Matt Hamill—the culprit will be his own arrogance, his own laziness and/or his own boredom.
And woe be to the man who knocks him from the throne because the unseating will be temporary and the rematch will be ugly.
Jones is simply that much better than any and all light heavyweights out there.
Seriously, take a look at the UFC’s light heavyweight roster and you’ll see Jon’s already dispatched the best names on the list. What’s more, he’s done so with extreme prejudice and zero mercy—Suga Rashad got decimated at UFC 145, Mauricio Rua got his at UFC 128, Lyoto Machida went nighty-night at UFC 140, Quinton Jackson cried uncle at UFC 135 and Ryan Bader fell victim to Jones’ meteoric rise at UFC 126.
All of the above save for Evans got stopped by the champ, as did Vladimir Matyushenko and Brandon Vera.
The kid is already threatening to clean out the division with only the ageless and surging Dan Henderson standing in his way. I say already because the 24-year-old is still relatively raw and getting better quickly.
Which is the problem for all the up-and-comers out there.
Give fellow youngsters like Phil Davis (27) or Alexander Gustafsson (25) some time in a vacuum and they might be able to catch up to Jonny’s current level. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works—Jones will also be improving, so his colleagues will constantly be chasing him.
Let’s consider what we just saw in Atlanta.
Rashad Evans is an abnormally quick, abnormally strong, abnormally well-conditioned light heavyweight. He also had a psychological advantage over Jones that no other fighter could possibly have—he was his training partner when Jon was first starting to climb the learning curve, so I’m sure there were training sessions in which the seasoned Suga put Bones on the receiving end of a thrashing or two. Regardless, he wasn’t held hostage by the champion’s intimidating aura thanks to that familiarity.
Yet Evans never had a chance.
Jones used his trump card, that 84.5-inch reach, to stay out of harm’s way while figuring novel methods of pulping his opponent’s face. This time, it was elbows thrown as if they were jabs that knock the sense either out of or into Suga Rashad. Once they started landing, the challenger adopted a mostly defensive posture and, though he did land a couple decent shots in the following rounds, they were merely cosmetic—reminding the audience that Evans was still trying and hopelessly outgunned.
Toss in the customary arsenal of leg kicks that only exacerbate the reach issue for Jones’ adversaries and you get the picture.
As Joe Rogan said during the pay-per-view telecast, the pride of Greg Jackson’s stable enjoys the biggest advantage in the UFC when he steps in the Octagon with that reach. To put it in (some) perspective, heavyweight Stefan Struve is the tallest man in the organization at 6’11” and he’s got an 84-inch reach.
Who’s reach is truly longer is irrelevant for our purposes because we’re talking about the current Jon Jones, and he’s a light heavyweight. The future Jon Jones might be a heavyweight, but until then, he’ll have at least a six-inch reach advantage against whomever is standing opposite him.
The difference will be over a foot when Hendo squares off with Jonny.
Yikes.
Of course, let’s not oversimplify this too much; Jon Jones is much more than just a guy with freakishly long arms. Take that reach advantage away, and he’s still a handful beyond the capacity of most gladiators. To get an idea, just check out the UFC 145 fight card and the two mini-Jon Joneses.
Bantamweight Michael McDonald and the welterweight Rory MacDonald pretty good approximations for what the light heavyweight kingpin might look like if you shaved half a foot off that reach. By all accounts, they are young (21 and 22, respectively), insanely athletic, uncanny strikers and tireless workers with steady-ish heads on their shoulders.
Both came up in the modern era of MMA, just like Jones, so they’re also well rounded.
And as anyone who watched the festivities on Saturday can also attest, they are bound for glory in their weight classes.
Jonny has all those things—the youth, the athleticism, the virtuoso striking, the work ethic, the well-roundedness—but he also has that freakin’ reach. Which is a bit like granting Usain Bolt a head start whenever he enters a race.
Whatever Chael Sonnen is smoking notwithstanding (at the 2:35 mark), 205 still is one of the best divisions in the UFC, but Bones is marauding through it, and he’s barely breaking a sweat.
It’s fitting that his latest triumph came in Atlanta, the starting point for General Sherman’s famous rampage through the South. That literal declaration of total warfare is widely credited with severely crippling the Confederacy’s physical and psychological ability to fight.
Jon Jones most impressive victory to date may have the same effect on the rest of the division.
The UFC has a big problem, and there is no way to currently fix it. Jon “Bones” Jones is destroying every opponent who stands in his way, and it’s sucking all of the drama out of the sport. His latest victim was Rashad Evans, who was only able to muste…
The UFC has a big problem, and there is no way to currently fix it.
Jon “Bones” Jones is destroying every opponent who stands in his way, and it’s sucking all of the drama out of the sport. His latest victim was Rashad Evans, who was only able to muster two legitimate punches on the lightweight champion.
Jones joined Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz and Frank Shamrock as the only fighters to ever win four consecutive UFC title fights at 205 pounds, and there doesn’t appear to be a single fighter in the sport who can unseat his reign of dominance.
How has the 24-year-old become possibly the most dominant fighter in the history of the sport?
Length.
Registering an 84.5-inch reach before the match, it was officially the longest in UFC history. Jones’ reach forces opponents to become defensive almost right off the bat. They can’t land a punch with any real force because they can’t reach the guy. Meanwhile, Jones chips away at opponents with kicks and jabs that seem to really wear down the other fighter, regardless of conditioning.
He uses this physical blessing to his full advantage by consistently keeping his opponent at bay. It frustrates them to the point where they try and get out of their comfort zone in an attempt to be the aggressor. This technique backfires, and Jones systematically destroys the opposition.
Future challengers have to figure out a way to neutralize his length advantage, or we are going to witness the greatest run of sheer dominance that the sport has ever seen.
UFC color commentator Joe Rogan summed it up best with this comment after the fight (via the Baltimore Sun):
“We may not have ever seen anyone as talented as Jon Jones in the octagon.”
Rashad Evans’ loss to Jon Jones at UFC 145 is only the second in his career, but at 32 years old, the fighter may already have reached the pinnacle of his career. The former light heavyweight champion had racked up wins against Thiago Silva, Quin…
Rashad Evans’ loss to Jon Jones at UFC 145 is only the second in his career, but at 32 years old, the fighter may already have reached the pinnacle of his career.
The former light heavyweight champion had racked up wins against Thiago Silva, Quinton Jackson, Tito Ortiz and Phil Davis since his loss to Machida. No doubt a long difficult climb up to title contention, which makes his loss to Jones that much more frustrating.
However, talk of retirement is premature. Certainly, Evans is not looking at anything so dramatic. His two losses both came in championship matches against elite fighters and judging by his performance last night, he’s still an improving fighter with ample opportunity to reflect and return better than ever.
At the post-fight press conference, Evans even hinted at a drop to middleweight where the road to a title fight would be that much shorter.
At 185 pounds, he would start with a clean slate and with division champion Anderson Silva’s long reign, there is always a need for new contenders. Right now, with Chael Sonnen busy hyping his rematch against Silva, there’s no clear-cut challenger after him.
However, there’s still work to do at 205 pounds. Besides top contender Dan Henderson, veteran Mauricio Rua and a possible rematch against Lyoto Machida, there are rising stars such as Alexander Gustafsson and Ryan Bader who Evans has yet to face.
The division has depth, and Evans has the skills and athleticism to rise to the top again. He can look back with pride at his fight against Jones, putting up stiffer resistance than anyone else in the division. A rematch between the two—after Jones faces Henderson—may come around quickly once Evans can re-establish his footing in the division.
Jones’ challengers outside Henderson are few, with the likes of Phil Davis and Gustafsson still some way off earning their title shot. And Jones himself already seems resigned to having to once again face his former teammate at some point in the future.
UFC 145 took place on Saturday night at Phillips Arena in Atlanta, Ga. The card was highlighted by Jon Jones retaining his UFC light heavyweight title with another fantastic performance. In defeating Rashad Evans, Jones showed that he was easily able t…
UFC 145 took place on Saturday night at Phillips Arena in Atlanta, Ga. The card was highlighted by Jon Jones retaining his UFC light heavyweight title with another fantastic performance. In defeating Rashad Evans, Jones showed that he was easily able to remove all the noise surrounding the fight and focus on the task at hand, defeating his former teammate in one of the most anticipated fights of the year.
The fights preceding the main event saw two young fighters, Rory MacDonald and Michael McDonald, continue their winning ways, while another, Stephen Thompson, was handed the first loss of his career.
Two heavyweight fighters also made statements on Saturday night, as Travis Browne and Ben Rothwell both stopped their opponents in the first round.
The preliminary card may have started off slow, but by the time the card ended, there were plenty of exciting moments that took place during the course of the 12-fight event.
What follows are some of the best images from UFC 145.
The rest of the UFC light heavyweight division is at the mercy of Jon Jones, but that doesn’t mean the phenom should move up to heavyweight.Not yet, at least.As he unleashes his beautifully violent fury on the rest of the UFC, it’s easy to forget that …
The rest of the UFC light heavyweight division is at the mercy of Jon Jones, but that doesn’t mean the phenom should move up to heavyweight.
Not yet, at least.
As he unleashes his beautifully violent fury on the rest of the UFC, it’s easy to forget that Jones is just 24 years old. His body is still changing, still growing, and it would be foolish for him to make a premature jump to heavyweight.
Because of his massive 6’4″ frame, Jones will naturally became a heavyweight as he gets older. He currently walks around at 230 pounds, so cutting to 205 won’t be healthy when he reaches his 30s.
Eventually, nature will indicate that it’s time for Jones to move up. Until then, he should enjoy his run of dominance and learn as much as he can.
Jones is perhaps the most skilled fighter on the planet, possessing every tool that a mixed martial artist needs. But while he currently looks unstoppable, the heavyweight division is an entirely different animal.
The division currently features beasts like Junior Dos Santos, Alistair Overeem, Frank Mir and Cain Velasquez. Not only are those guys incredibly skilled, but they often have to cut weight to reach the 266-pound weight limit. That’s just terrifying.
Yes, there are no more challenges for Jones at 205 pounds. He’s already buried the division’s top contenders, crossing Ryan Bader, Shogun Rua, Quinton Jackson, Lyoto Machida and now Rashad Evans off his hit list.
Next up is Dan Henderson, who will likely be 42 years old by the day of the fight. And with all due respect to the legendary Hendo, Jones will probably knock him from the UFC to the AARP.
Jones is simply too big, too long and too skilled for light heavyweight fighters. He’s impossible to take down, he doesn’t make mistakes and he inflicts a poetic brand of punishment that’s just gorgeous as long as you’re not on the receiving end.
At this point, the rest of the division should be kindling incense and praying to the MMA god that is Jones. If he moves up to heavyweight, though, his stature within the sport—and more importantly, his health—could take a serious downturn.
Many fight fans are pleading for Jones to move up, but we must have patience. Jones has the potential to be the best MMA fighter of all time. Why would we want him to risk sacrificing that distinction by moving up in weight when he’s not ready?
Eventually, Jones will be a terror in the heavyweight division. Until then, just sit back and appreciate the greatness he displays at 205.
It’s now clear why “Suga” Rashad Evans spent so much time running his mouth prior to his UFC light heavyweight title fight with Jon Jones at UFC 145 on Saturday night. It’s now clear why Evans put so much energy into calling out his former sparring partner, suggesting to anyone who would ask (and even some who didn’t) that his buddy “Bones” had betrayed him in pursuit of the title.