Jon Jones vs. Cyril Gane is on for the Interim title!

On the one hand I think Gane is overrated, on the other hand I think Jones is old and busted
On the one hand Jones will have a lot of his natural advantages negated at heavyweight, on the other hand I think Gane's style plays into Jones perfectly

Jones will undoubtedly have an advantage on the cards

Unless Jones looks absolutely horrible at heavyweight, I think he wins. Gane doesn't have a touch-of-death or an inevitable ground-game. Gradually breaking down Derrick Lewis and Tai Tuivasa, who both got battered by Sergei Pavlovich much quicker, isn't all that impressive

So yeah, I reckon Jonny Bones Jones wins. I can imagine a similar situation to Usyk where Bones beats one (or more) of the top guys due to his style, but there are a number of other top 10 guys who he leapfrogged who could give him some serious trouble

 

Jones actually half a pound heavier than Gane. Didn't think he'd be quite that big. He had a bit of a belly, though. Gane looked more trim.

 

Yep. Jon looks out of shape at HW. He should have come in a bit over his LHW weight, but what can we expect from a guy that has been fighting his wife and the law for the past 3 years.

 

Well that was fast.

 

Cheers, and it's fun to see how the fight panned out. Jones was extremely confident going into this fight, and I wanted to believe him... buuut this is combat sport and you need to be careful about tempting fate

A few observations:
- Jones looked extremely flatfooted and slow in the first minute or so. He was throwing leg-kicks, which was good, but his bigger kicks seemed slow and unbalanced. I appreciate Jones is new at the weight and even said himself that he had ring rust so we'll see next time. I wonder if this is simply a biomechanical thing where bigger guys, regardless of their build or athleticism, simply can't kick as well
- Despite Jones being slow, he was able to negate a lot of Gane's movement simply through his reach advantage (and maybe the threat of the takedown?). Either Jones himself or maybe Frank Mir during the heavyweight panel mentioned this and they were spot on. Excellent analysis
- Gane is an extremely nice human being and seems very satisfied with his life and his identity, but this is cagefighting. The guy has absolutely zero heart. I don't always agree with Teddy Atlas, but he regularly says boxing is 75% mental and 25% physical, but MMA is 80% mental and 20% physical... I think... and he's 100% correct. I know these are cherrypicked examples but compare this sub to the ones Ortega tried on Volk. Gane was a breath of fresh air in 2021 when Jones was on hiatus, Ngannou was being a diva and Stipe was pseudo-retired. However, after the bizarre Ngannou fight and with much better contenders climbing the heavyweight rankings, he's yesterday's news. The Tai fight was a boring rerun of the Lewis fight - Tai is a fun personality who should've never been in that fight
- I already thought Gane was overrated. I'm not a fan of dissecting people's resumes, but his MMA wins are against nobodies, 3rd rate fighters (Boser), permanent contenders (Volkov), fossils (JDS) or guys his style is perfect for (Rozenstruik, Lewis, Tuivasa)
- Jones beating Gane and then possibly beating Stipe is like Usyk beating AJ and then possibly beating Fury. I reckon a number of guys like Blaydes and Pavlovich could beat Jones, similar to guys like Joyce, Hrgovic and possibly even Wilder and Ruiz beating Usyk. Jones and Usyk are both operating well out of their comfort zone and are successful due to their extreme skill but also favourable matchups
- I'm really glad Jones won not just because he's a more interesting personality, or because of the Jones-Stipe superfight, but MOST IMPORTANTLY because this was a great reminder that oldschool golden age MMA grit beats this cringe modern MMA athleticism rubbish. Cagefighting has its niche and the sport is in dire need of a few 'real ones' right now
- Jones is the MMA GOAT. Before this fight I personally still had GSP as my #1 but I think we need to accept reality. Does beating a green, overrated guy like Gane for a vacant title trump beating a weak, but nevertheless legit and veteran dog in Bisping? idk, but Bones has proven his P4P greatness at last. That being said, if Jones wants to really impress the doubters then fight a Blaydes/Pavlovich-type young guy to finish your career. However, if you class the Matt Hamill loss as a NC and the DC2 NC as a win, Jones would be 30-0(1) if he beats Stipe. I'm sure the UFC will keep pushing kids into title shots until Jones' record is artificially broken, but given the time he's spent at the top, unbeaten, the names he's bagged and the weights he's competed at - GOAT status is assured. I don't think this will ever be beaten, either. In a way, Jones has fought at the optimal time: beating all of the guys who came from the golden age of MMA in Pride, beating all of the guys who fought during the golden age of the UFC and now beating all of these athletic new guys. It's why I still put Federer over Nadal and Novak, who competed at the highest level during a number of different eras each with their own distinct culture. Same goes for Ali, though his greatness was bigger than all of those guys combined. Personally, I wish all of the turds in the sports world would stop abusing the word GOAT. GOAT is GOAT. Not ATG. Not HOF. GOAT is GOAT. All of this ''top 5 MMA GOATs'' stuff. Mate, **** off

 

I agree/disagree with this. I don't think Jones looks out of shape at all: he's put on a lot of muscle and only a little bit of fat. All of this he's fat!!1 stuff ignores how thick his core has become, from all of those compound lifts he's being doing no doubt. His bodyfat% probably HAS gone up, but not to the extent people are thinking. People acting like he looks like heavyweight DC when he clearly has bigger biceps, bigger lats and bigger quads, among other things, that he did at 205

That being said, I do wonder if all of this extra muscle will restrict him structurally. One of this high kicks in the Gane fight looked like something I'd throw. I used to do a bit of natural bodybuilding and I while I never found packing muscle on hard, it was KEEPING this muscle that was almost impossible (naturally). Our bodies simply, from an evolutionary pov, don't want to be carrying stupid amounts of skeletal muscle. No matter how many plates you lift or protein shakes you drink, your heart muscle can't get bigger. The most obvious, relevant boxing example being AJ who looked like Phil Heath for half his fights. So I wonder if Jones is very susceptible to gassing out, with his heart having to feed all of those new muscles with oxygen. That being said I think he will try to balance this with an energy-conserving style... that just so happens to be perfect for a slow-paced division like heavyweight

Either way, if Stipe trains properly, that fight should be a proper test

 

The only thing I truly disagree with is your comparison of Miocic to Fury.
My boy Stipe hasn´t fought in 2 years and his loss to Ngannou was pretty one-sided. Plus he is 40 now.

 

Well put. I was just used to seeing him at LHW weight. He looked good at HW last night but the Stipefight will absolutely be a goodfight