Yup, there is no 'default' respect for a fighter who walks into an MMA gym with a long lanky build. They are often mocked and ridiculed, as Jones was, that 'one kick will snap those chicken legs' or 'those arms are ripe to be snapped'.
Since the inception of MMA it was the grapplers build, stalky and powerful that was seen as the advantage and many believed that true strikers build would never be able to compete.
Then suddenly you had a small number of skilled striker based fighters train in MMA enough to gain the skills to be able to counter the top grapplers at their own game, such that they could impose a striking game. They had to be able to 'control where the fight took place', a myth that was always thought something only grapplers could do.
then suddenly 'long limbs and being lanky was an unfair, unskilled advantage'. FLOL.
No, it is zero advantage until the fighter gets a good enough grappling game (nullification game) to be able to stop the top grapplers and instead impose their game, such that the grappler is now forced to fight standing up.
To dismiss being able to stop the top grapplers from imposing their game, as no skill needed, just a lanky body, is the type of nonsense though that many MMA fans have convinced themselves of.
IMO it is the people butt hurt over the fact that grapplers dictate where the fight takes placed myth was burst and instead it is 'skilled fighters dictate where the fight takes place'. That most of the skilled fighters came mostly from wrestling ranks prior just made many people think it was a dominant art. It is not as the relatively small number, comparatively of strikers achieving success speaks to.
