Jon “Bones” Jones has never been tested. At least, that’s according to challenger Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. Surely, the 24-year-old light heavyweight champion doesn’t have the resume of a veteran like Jackson, or others who have been in the fight game for a decade. He’s the youngest champ in UFC history and earned his title shot after only seven fights in the UFC, and when an injury made way for him. But he’s been tested. It’s just that he’s aced every test and made it look easy. That’s why, in the sports world, he skipped a few grades.
Jones takes on Jackson at UFC 135 on Saturday.
Granted, Jones’ chin has never been tested. We’ve never seen him in trouble. We’ve never seen him rocked. We don’t know how he’ll respond to that. But if he hasn’t taken a big shot to this point in his career, there’s a reason. He’s just that good (and his 84-inch reach doesn’t hurt either).
On paper, the UFC was testing him. Guys like Stephan Bonnar and Vladimir Matyushenko aren’t the best fighters in the world, but nobody walks through them, except for Jones. Ryan Bader isn’t yet elite either, but was a top contender at the time they fought. The tests don’t get much harder than Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. But Jones earned another “A,” and arguably scored close to 100 percent. Shogun was baffled in how to attack him.
Rampage will be another tough test for Jones, but he’s Algebra I to Shogun’s Calculus. As time has gone by, he’s gotten more and more one dimensional, turning into almost purely a boxer. It makes it harder for him to land that KO punch, and easier for his opponents to prepare and to defend. You can argue their place in history, but at this moment, Shogun is the better, more aggressive, more versatile of the two fighters. And he was destroyed. It’s easy, and unfair, to downgrade a fighter’s opponents after a beating.
“Jon Jones is a good fighter, man, but the toughest person he ever fought [is] Vladimir Matyushenko,” Jackson told ESPN. “But I could tell Vladimir wasn’t on his game that day.
“And Shogun? Come on, Shogun just [came off] a long injury, [hadn't] fought for a while. That wasn’t the same Shogun that won the belt, you know what I’m saying? Everybody knows that. If you know fighting, you know that.
“This guy has never been tested, never been hit. I ain’t worried about his height, his reach. I ain’t worried about none of that. I ain’t worried about his crazy spinning elbow move, everything. We broke this guy down. It’s going to be a good fight, no matter what.”
Rampage is right about Jones never really being hit, but if he believes the rest of what he said, he’s even less likely to pull off the upset this Saturday at UFC 135. Rampage can’t simply rely on being able to hit harder. What if he hits him with his best shot and discovers Jones can take it? Then what’s the game plan? It’s still an exciting matchup. Rampage, as always, has the power to KO anybody. But my suspicion is it will look much like Jones’ previous fight against Shogun, with a confused and frustrated veteran fighter eventually succumbing to the wildness that is Jon Jones. Then we can look forward to the next challenger telling us that Jones has never been hit by someone like him, and how easy Jones has had it up to this point.
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Previously in The Beatdown …
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Tim Gilmour is a sports reporter and author of the humor blog LetMeThinkForYou.com. His column appears on Monday. For more NBCSports.com MMA coverage, click here.
