D. Henderson summer Then take on Gustaffson maybe a rematch with Rua- 2013 Take on Phil Davis if he keeps winning G. Moussasi M. Lawal still plenty of light-heavies to take on.
Apart from Hendo these fights are all a backwards steps in terms of challenge and hype than JJ's last 4. Hendo next than move up, I say .
**** performance by Evans who just backed up all night and was just happy to last the distance. Clearly lost all 5 rds imo. If Evans had any will he would have laid it all on the line from rd 3 onwards when it was clear he was well behind. The only fighter who has had any success against Jones was Machida in one rd. Baffling that some people on here are giving Evans props for that stinker of a challenge to win the belt. Baffling.
Meanwhile, in the real world: Evans only chance was the big counter shot. He could have landed that at 4:55 of the 5th round. He COULDN'T outpoint or finish Jones, he knew that. You cannot say he wasn't trying to land the big counter, and therefore trying to win. Reality is JJ is a beast at LHW and has no visible weakness/holes in his game. Not getting smashed to **** by Jones is an achievement in it's own right, just think about how his last few fights went.
Exactly. Lasting 25 minutes with that monster and not backpedalling the whole fight is damn impressive
Thought he fought to the tune of Jones but didn't do that bad, has some great striking, Jones just took his shots and had, as always, an incredible reach advantage so Rashad didn't get to do more. I was surprised about his lack of wrestling, but I can't really complain if that means Rashad is falling more in love with his striking. He puts on his most boring fights when he's trying to wrestle and actually sometimes gets hurt doingit.
Shogun came foward and fought like a man. Rashad fought like a ***** for most of the fight because he was scared of getting hurt. Had Rashad taken one tenth of the beating Shogun did he would have literally been in the fetal postion crying in a puddle of his own **** within the 1st 3 minutes.
Jones' walk around weight is up to between 225-230, but weighs under 220 after a camp. I think he said that he made his cut from 217 for this fight. That makes him middle of the road 205er in terms of actual weight. Most of those guys weigh between 220-250 when they're not training. As I understand it, Jones didn't even cut to make 205 when he started fighting four years ago. Re Evans. It was clear that he was just out there to survive in the last two rounds, but I give him credit for his (underrated) chin and the fact that he was able to negate Jones' clinch work. Like him or not, he's one of the top 3-4 guys at 205, and it's really hard to shut him down like that. Only Jones and peak Machida have been able to do it.
That's true, but Jones had only been fighting professionally for nine months when he took that fight.
It surprised me he managed to land on Bones cleanly a couple of times and shake him up based on Jones' reaction. With that said, he was still thoroughly outclassed but he did better than most of Jones' other opponents. Exceeded my expectations.
And? Shogun is shot and has been for some time. Way i see it he did better than Evans. As despite having career knee injury's he came to fight and went out on his shield the PRIDE way.