First of all, we all know that Matt Hamill fight shouldn’t be a loss, a DQ yes, but to call it a win for Hamill? An oversight in MMA rule making in my opinion. Now, with that out of the way, albeit preceding what I want to discuss, let’s get to why it seems as though Jones, ahead of his Heavyweight run, seems largely dismissed.
When the GOAT debate flared with the retirement of Khabib Nurmagomedov, some were none too happy with the idea of Nurmagomedov taking the top spot. I for one have to agree, and here it is again, the Hamill loss should not have been so, instead a disqualification only, meaning in principle, Jones should have an 0 in the loss column. When it then comes to comparing records, what separates Jones and Nurmagomedov? People would argue dominance, but is that the only metric in what should be a multivariate analysis? What about career length? Level of competition? Amount of fights? Weight class difference? I mean, can we talk about how Jones handed the only double champ in light heavyweight history two losses despite the troubles he’s had? Essentially this debate is and will always be subjective. But Nurmagomedov has fought more recently, and rest assured if Jones were to move past Ngannou and Miocic, with the russian retired, Jones would move back into that spot, without a doubt.
Strategy plays a big part in fights, styles too and this changes based on the compound created when two elements combine. Now, no one can compete with Khabib’s wrestling, but this is where MMA math gets silly, and I’m about to indulge in this so advanced apologies. The question is where does Cormier rank compared to Khabib in terms of wrestling skill? This is relevant because Jones was able to out wrestle Cormier pretty comfortably and as per the previous point, in terms of recency bias, this impressive feat has fallen foul to recency bias.
Now we don’t want to romanticise Jones’ troubles outside of the cage, so we won’t delve into that, but what is relevant, is how he performed when he returned to action. His returns against Cormier, although blighted by positive PED tests, were nonetheless impressive and his performances post Cormier weren’t always dominant, but he showed consistently his championship mentality.
This all leads to the question of how dominant he could be as a heavyweight. I don’t think that as a leyman, I, and perhaps a majority of MMA fans, could contemplate just how much the weight gain from light heavyweight to heavyweight really changes the balance of a fighter, from speed to power, but more importantly, mobility, which in turn affects strategy. Gustaffson demonstrated the potential struggles with adding weight for the sake of weight. He didn’t look bulkier in terms of muscle, but he was certainly carrying some extra body fat, and that mesmerising boxing that we saw In the first Jones fight, didn’t seem to be present. I’ve thought about the concept of mobility a lot with the recent heavyweight picture. In particular, when I was watching Alexander Volkov pick apart Alistair Overeem, it wasn’t long before I was thinking about just how slow he looked compared to Stipe Miocic. When I then went to watch back Miocic fights, I actually thought he had the kind of speed you’d find in a light heavyweight, or even a middleweight. I feel that this is down to how natural Miocic is at that weight. When Jones moves up, he will most certainly sacrifice some of that fast-twitch speed due to immense muscle gain. I’d certainly give Miocic the advantage here and where I would not be my money on Jones for this fight.
I would however, give the advantage to Jones in a contest with Francis Ngannou, and I would not have done so, had Miocic showed the world how a well rounded approach with a firm basis in fundamentals leaves you less at the whim of those hammers Ngannou swings. Unlike Alistair Overeem, who decided oddly to throw a winging overhand, and leave it resting on Ngannou’s shoulder whilst he blindly moved his head around. This might seem an unwarranted criticism from a non-pro like myself. But again, Miocic never left himself off balance, never exposed, and always kept his hands up to protect his head. Jones would match this format well, he would not put his head in danger and his wrestling could even be greater than that of Miocic, meaning a take down heavy approach wouldn’t be the worst strategy in the world.
As an entirely subjective look into the future for Jones, whilst I’m not confident of a win against the champion, I can see that if anyone has the potential to be dominant at that weight, aside from the dominance already displayed by Miocic, it quite clearly would be Jones, who else ask yourselves, has that championship mentality? Time will tell, and 2021 will be the year we find out.