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Which HW figthers could beat Jon Jones? IMO Junior, Cain,maybe Werdum (lucky) and Overeem have more than 50 percent chances. Barnett, Cormier , Mir 50/50 imo.

There's probably a bit of recency bias going on here, but I don't know that there are any fighters I would favour outright over Jones.

I mean, assuming he'd come in at 240+, he'd still have physical advantages over most guys, and he'd have skill advantages over pretty much everyone.

Once Jones finally hits a squat rack, it's game over. I'd favour him over any heavyweight as well. He'll at least have the threat of getting KO'd in the heavyweight division, so there'll always be that factor of potential defeat.

I think he'd be top three, an instant contender. I could see Cormier, JDS, and Cain beating him.

SDM wrote:I think he'd be top three, an instant contender. I could see Cormier, JDS, and Cain beating him.

Same. That's all though.

He definitely has to go to HW, there's so many more interesting match-ups. Hell I'd even be interested to see him fight Roy Nelson and he's probably not even top 5 in the division.

The only real doubts I have about Jones at HW are about his ability to take a HW punch. And that's not even a knock on Jones, really. The power at that weight class makes it damn near impossible to go on the kind of run Jones has at LHW, Silva at MW, GSP at WW, etc.

Part of me feels like that makes Fedor's run all the more impressive, but once he started fighting legit guys fight in fight out, the streak came to an end.

It's hard for me to say until I see Jones in a heavyweight fight. Jones is a phenomenal fighter, how well would he do against a guy that's bigger than him, like Bigfoot?

I think that Cain, Cormier, and JDS are tough matchups for everyone, and Bigfoot and Overeem could give Jon some trouble, but he would dominate everyone else. If Jones defends his LHW title 2 more times, beats Anderson Silva in a superfight, and then takes the HW crown and defends it 3 times, he has to be considered the GOAT.

Yea, how do you guys see Overeem/Jones playing out?

I can't even imagine those two standing across from each other.

Jones jabbing him to death, probably.

Testostereem would have a better chance... could even submit Jones.

I agree with the general opinion that it'll be tough to guess how he'd do until we actually see him. His last two fights have been against glorified 185ers... if Cain locked on that Vitor armbar, would Jones be able to shake him off?

Probably not. I wonder if Cain even trains off his back. Besides training to get back off it immediately a la the Brock fight, that is.

Jones has been dominated legends who are past their prime and smaller than him. Is that any more impressive than what Bigfoot did to Fedor? Randy was able to make the jump to HW, but he had trouble with bigger guys, and I'd favor JDS, Cain, and Cormier over him. It's really hard to speculate right now how Jones would do against the top 5 HWs, but I think that we'd all agree that he'd be able to tool the average HW.

Yea, there is no question he could beat an average or above average hw like Mitrione via any method, during any round that he so chose.

NZB2323 wrote:Jones has been dominated legends who are past their prime and smaller than him. Is that any more impressive than what Bigfoot did to Fedor? Randy was able to make the jump to HW, but he had trouble with bigger guys, and I'd favor JDS, Cain, and Cormier over him. It's really hard to speculate right now how Jones would do against the top 5 HWs, but I think that we'd all agree that he'd be able to tool the average HW.

Lyoto, Rashaad, Vitor, and Shogun are all asking you wtf you're talking about.


Honestly, I don't see how people are favoring Cain over Bones is bigger (taller and longer) and more skilled than Cain in everything. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't see Cain better than Jones at anything.

He's still going to have a reach advantage always. I think when you put him in that weight, he'll be the best athlete by a long shot, and his skill set will be tops.

So much power at HW though, anything could happen.

NO-KG-AI wrote:He's still going to have a reach advantage always. I think when you put him in that weight, he'll be the best athlete by a long shot, and his skill set will be tops.

So much power at HW though, anything could happen.

Jones and Struve have an identical reach. I think that would be an interesting debut match for him at heavyweight.

Yeah, he keeps talking about Gustafsson being the guy to shut people up about his size advantage but they're the same height and Gustafsson has like a 7 inch reach disadvantage. It'd do no such thing. Struve is a different story though.

Although I'm not a fan, Struve's eggs have been scrambled too much for me to want to see that happen again at the hands of Bones.

It was only like 2 years ago that Struve was in bottom mount getting pounded hard by Christian Morecraft.

Starkiller wrote:

NZB2323 wrote:Jones has been dominated legends who are past their prime and smaller than him. Is that any more impressive than what Bigfoot did to Fedor? Randy was able to make the jump to HW, but he had trouble with bigger guys, and I'd favor JDS, Cain, and Cormier over him. It's really hard to speculate right now how Jones would do against the top 5 HWs, but I think that we'd all agree that he'd be able to tool the average HW.

Lyoto, Rashaad, Vitor, and Shogun are all asking you wtf you're talking about.


Honestly, I don't see how people are favoring Cain over Bones is bigger (taller and longer) and more skilled than Cain in everything. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't see Cain better than Jones at anything.

Shogun is 3-4 in his last 7 fights, Lyoto is 3-3 in his last 6 fights, Rashad is 4-3 in his last 7 fights, and Vitor is 3-2 in his last 5 fights. At one point all of these guys were ranked #1 in their weight class and top 10, if not top 5 in the world P4P. Now they're on the wrong side of 30, and they're not as good as they used to be.

Machida win is kinda stained... he wasn't the Machida Era fighter. Jones was mega impressive in this fight though... I thought Machida had the skillset to trouble him, but I also feel this fight told us a lot about Machida too.
Shogun has been incredibly overrated in his UFC career. Loses to Forrest, awful fight against Coleman, KO's Chuck. Then the Machida thing. Bleh.
Rampage. Basically retired now.
Vitor is also past his (natural) prime. Puffed up 185er.
Sonnen. Puffed up 185er... probably in his prime though.

The 205 division has been the usual suspects beating eachother and not making much overall headway for as long as I can remember, even back to when Forrest was champ.

Forrest over Shogun
Shogun over Machida
Machida over Henderson
Henderson over Shogun
Rampage over Machida
Machida over Tito
Tito over Bader
Bader over Little Nog
Little Nog over Rashad
Rashad over Davis
Davis over Little Nog

ZZZZzzzzzz.

I guess the last time I've truly been excited about a 205 title fight... Shogun/Machida II... Machida/Jones. That's about it, and both were due to style matchups. There hasn't been a guy in the past five years, aside from Machida and Jones, who quickly climbed up the ranks with very few questions about them. Gus and Davis aren't looking like killers, even though they're winning. UFC screwed the pooch too by matching Bader up with Jones for no freaking reason when both were at about the same level in the division. Bader hasn't been able to pick up momentum since then, really.