Are There Any Exciting Fights Left for Jon Jones at LHW?

[capnlarge]

Man you realize how bad LHW sucks when you see it written out like that. Anthony Smith and Volkan Oezdemir have the best punchers chance on the list, so maybe those ones?

 

[A.S. Deep]

At LHW it's Reyes, but most would agree Reyes isn't ready just yet. So until then we might get Smith and then Corey Anderson.

 

[ReadWrite]

His fight last night was pretty anticlimactic. All that drama. Now what? No exciting fights left.

 

[jsbx45]

Smith and Santos are on a roll. Reyes is too, but might get Yair Rodriguez'd badly, who knows? These are all potential matchups. Maybe Volkan.

On another note, whatever happened with Volkan's "legal challenges"?

 

[bad seed]

Which of the following ranked opponents are you dying to see Jones fight?

2 Alexander Gustafsson

3 Anthony Smith

4 Jan Blachowicz

5 Ilir Latifi

6 Volkan Oezdemir

7 Thiago Santos

8 Dominick Reyes

9 Jimi Manuwa

10 Corey Anderson

11 Ovince Saint Preux

12 Glover Teixeira

13 Mauricio Rua

14 Misha Cirkunov

15 Nikita Krylov

you're missing someone.

 

[ArtOfDrowning]

Nobody. Everybody else is easy work for Jones. Division is essentially dead and future Jones PPV numbers will be low.

 

[bad seed]

Smith and Santos are on a roll. Reyes is too, but might get Yair Rodriguez'd badly, who knows? These are all potential matchups. Maybe Volkan.

On another note, whatever happened with Volkan's "legal challenges"?

Smith and Santos are chinny and have sustained a lot of damage already. They are not going to remain in the top 10 long. Reyes has a chance but still too early to tell. Volkan is still dangerous but not not well rounded enough. You cant have any holes in your game against Jones.

 

[Quinton Overeem]

16. Usada

 

[IndyCovaHart]

Add Johnnie Walker to your pole.

 

[GreatSaintGuillotine]

Reyes if he wasn't green. Jon isn't losing to any LHWs any time soon

 

[FrankFixer]

Jones should move up.

 

[Super Shotgun]

Nobody. Everybody else is easy work for Jones. Division is essentially dead and future Jones PPV numbers will be low.

All the more reason to move up to HW

 

[ferrisjso]

More than HW where DC being the champ and Stipe getting beat by DC kind of takes away the whole point.

I always wanted to see a Davis fight thought that was an intriguing matchup but he's in Bellator. The most deserving LHW is prolly Bellator's champ Ryan Bader who drastically improved from "the guy Tito beat that time " to going on an insane 11-1 run since 2013 that would warrant a title shot if he were in the UFC. Only guy that beat Bader over that run Rumble Johnson is also gone, Jones was supposed to fight him when things things fell apart so it makes sense on that level, and he would be a nice early round threat but even if he was around DC beat him twice and that kind of would ruin it.

Gus is probably still the second best fighter who's actually in the division he beat Blachowicz but no one is going to want to see a third one after this at least for a few years. Almost makes sense for Gus to go to HW instead of waiting in the awkward limbo between being number one contender and not being able to get a title shot he's been in for five years. He's fought six times since the Jones fight and if he stays don't see anything changing he'll likely keep beating everyone and keep not earning a title shot. Blachowicz and Volkan are honestly kind of ruined as hypable matchups because they lost to fighters Jones beat same as any of the fighters Jones beat. Glover, Rua and OSP are just there as obstacles for up and comers at this point.

Could give to Reyes, Anthony Smith or Thiago Santos who all have streaks. So maybe the two the UFC decides is best suited for a title shot fight which I'd say would be Reyes and Smith fight. Then maybe have Santos fight Corey Anderson who looked really good yesterday. Almost don't want to do that though cause you might ruin future title fights when there are very few ones to make. Those four are the ones though. Another issue with keeping Gus around is he's likely to end the title contention of other fighters while at the same time not getting a shot because he's lost twice. He's too good to be a gatekeeper too bad to get a title challenge.

Think without Bellator things would honestly be fine in this division they've got like five or six guys who'd make things interesting but having an actual viable second promotion really hurts this division.

 

[ferrisjso]

All the more reason to move up to HW

He beat the champ of HW twice in not really close fights. That champ beat the division's former GOAT in one round. Don't know what he could possibly be looking to accomplish. At least at LHW he still has a belt and is in title fights. Also if Jones leaves whoever the LHW champ is will always be seen as a pretender even more than DC.

 

[Deleted member 506663]

Doesn't matter, Bones does what he wants.

 

[Klippy]

Bones will probably fight once more at LHW then move up.. The move to HW is inevitable.

 

[Super Shotgun]

He beat the champ of HW twice in not really close fights. That champ beat the division's former GOAT in one round. Don't know what he could possibly be looking to accomplish. At least at LHW he still has a belt and is in title fights. Also if Jones leaves whoever the LHW champ is will always be seen as a pretender even more than DC.

As opposed to what? Sticking around and fighting more LHW goofs like Anthony freaking Smith? What's the point? At least hw is a fresh division with fresh matchups and it has that what if intrigue.

 

[ferrisjso]

As opposed to what? Sticking around and fighting more LHW goofs like Anthony freaking Smith? What's the point? At least hw is a fresh division with fresh matchups and it has that what if intrigue.

Well eventually one of those goofs is going to win. Every unbeatable champ loses at some point. At least he's got a belt and can keep defending it. Makes more sense to do what AS did and go up once or twice as a special event sort of thing against Lesnar or someone who has no prayer of winning while keeping his belt. Makes more sense for Gus to leave and go HW tbh because Gus almost beat DC and if he wants a trilogy with Jones he'll have to wait an eternity. Jones has a belt, a dominant champion defends the belt against fighters who usually have little to no chance. That's how it always was, that's what a champion is supposed to do. Last few years people began demanding champs to jump around from division to division to settle whose the best and the sports becoming like boxing almost with all these interim titles, titles being stripped and champions hyperactively jumping from division to division. If you're going to do that what's even the point of having divisions in the first place?

HW is a fresh division because they've never had a dominant champ and everyone beats everyone. Stipe had the most title defenses of all time at three and he lost to the LHW paper champ. DC's hardest fights of his career were in LHW. There's intriguing matchups in HW but there's none that are intriguing for Jon Jones. He's the GOAT everything is going to be a mismatch. Since 2013 the guy's fought two people who weren't named Gus or DC maybe it's time to get back to given new fighters a chance instead of stretching out rivalries for five years every time a fighter takes a round from him. Remember when Machida almost got a rematch off of actually landing just one flurry on Jones?

 

[xn7]

shogun.

 

[ultramanhyata]

At LHW it's Reyes, but most would agree Reyes isn't ready just yet.

I know a guy who can help Reyes "get ready" for Jones.