Everyone will mock you, but I must admit that I was also a bit surprised. Not "rattled." I was actually rooting for Jon Jones to win.
It surprised me because Jon Jones, three years ago, couldn't take down a former middleweight in Thiago Santos (3 years older than Jones) who was suffering from a torn ACL, MCL and PCL on his right leg. By all accounts, Thiago Santos, who was much older than Jones, and a former middleweight, was fighting on a single leg, and Jon Jones couldn't take him down. Thiago, in his very next fight, went on to be taken down multiple times and even submitted by a 42-year-old Glover Teixera.
Never mind Dominick Reyes, which is a fight where Jones also showcased poor wrestling ability. Just not being able to take down a small kickboxer who was fighting on 1 leg, substantially older, and who went on to be easily ragdolled by a 42-year-old Teixera did it for me.
For him to have come back 3 years later and to easily ragdoll Cyril Gane, who is 3 years younger than Jones, and much bigger than Thiago Santos, was very unexpected based on Jones' performance against Santos. Santos and Gane are both kickboxers, so it was my frame of reference.
People also laugh at HW and say that Jones easily beating Gane was foreseeable because HW is the weakest division, but I was also considering the fact that a 43-year-old Werdum easily took down and dominated a 32-year-old Gustafsson on the ground in a single round, while Jones and DC couldn't really do it in the first encounter, and in Jones vs Gustafsson 2, it took Jones three rounds to get the job done. That's for grappling. In terms of striking (which we didn't see much of), we also know that Anthony Johnson (who was a KO artist at LHW) was only able to win a lackluster decision against glass-chin Arlovski. Ben Rothwell (one of the most unskilled HWs) defeated Ovince St. Preux, a LHW skilled enough to beat Corey Anderson, Shogun Rua twice, and Marcos Rogerio de Lima.
It just didn't seem black and white to me.
