Jones’ redemption lends order to MMA
The Ultimate Fighting Championship belt — thick, black leather, covered in golden plates studded with diamonds — was wrapped around the beleaguered former UFC lightheavyweight champion Jon Jones’ waist for the first time in 21⁄ 2 years on Saturday night in Anaheim, Calif. And then Jones collapsed to his knees with emotion.
Fighting is about moments. It’s about men and women probing, recognizing and exploiting minuscule opportunities to render their opponents helpless. Jones, 30, is already by most accounts the greatest mixed martial arts fighter ever. In the most important fight of his career, a rematch against defending champion and archrival Daniel Cormier, Jones seized his moment, knocking out Cormier with a devastating left head kick and a flurry of punches three minutes into the third round. It was a perfect end to the toughest chapter in Jones’ life.
Six years ago, Jones, then 23, beat Mauricio Rua to become the youngest UFC champion. Jones then defended his belt seven successive times before beating Cormier on Jan. 3, 2015. Then his world fell apart. Jones tested positive for cocaine in an out-of-season drug test; was stripped of his title in April 2015 when he was charged with leaving the scene of a car crash in which a pregnant woman’s arm was broken; and was suspended for a year after another test, administered by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, detected two separate estrogen blockers, generally used when athletes are cycling off steroids, in his blood.
In his absence, the UFC attempted to move on. Conor McGregor stepped into the void to become the biggest star in mixed martial arts. Cormier, a 38-year-old former Olympian, became the next champion, and then successfully defended the belt twice. On Saturday, Jones restored order to MMA.
The Jones-Cormier rivalry has been the greatest in the sport. The stakes were so high Saturday night because both were fighting for more than the belt. They were fighting to determine once and for all whose era this is. The third-round kick ended the debate, coming when Jones seemed to be trailing Cormier in a high-paced, claustrophobic match in which Cormier belted Jones with several punches to the chin, fuelling concerns that Jones had ring rust.
“I made it back,” Jones said in a post-fight interview. “It’s never over. As long as you never quit, it’s never over. I’m back here.”
Jones set aside the animosity both had shown before the fight to offer good words for Cormier, whom he called his biggest motivator. (In addition to the belt, Jones will receive a yet-to-be determined cut from the pay-per-view revenue and a $50,000 bonus.)
“He has been a model champion, a model husband, a model father, teammate, leader, and I aspire to be more like that man,” Jones said right after the fight. “Unfortunately we’re opponents, but outside of that, he is a true champion for the rest of his life.”
The question now is what comes next.
The best fight for Jones probably would be a rematch against Alexander Gustafsson, the Swedish fighter who was his toughest opponent.
But Saturday night, to raucous applause, Jones called out Brock Lesnar, the 40-year-old, semi-retired former UFC heavyweight champion and occasional professional wrestler. It would be a megafight that could slip into the mainstream, as well as a dubious one, akin to the coming boxing match between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and McGregor. In Jones’ absence, Cormier achieved his dream of becoming champion. But it felt hollow. He could not realize his lifelong dream of being the best in the world so long as Jones was inactive.
“I guess if he wins both fights, there is no rivalry,” Cormier, weeping and still dazed from the knockout, said in the cage.