If Jones didn't exist, would LHW have had a dominant, long-reigning champion?

Clementine said:
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I consider The Machida Era to be the man's flawless 15 wins in a row and becoming the undisputed and undefeated UFC champion while sustaining practically no damage whatsoever. That's fucking unfathomable magic in the world of MMA!

I don't think anyone has ever done that and in such amazing fashion. Fedor has a loss in his streak. Evans has a draw. Even Jones has the DQ loss, which still counts as a loss. Khabib is probably the only valid comparison but it took 26 wins before he got his belt.
 
BFoe said:
Man, I’m hooted we didn’t get to see that. I was at UFC 170 (Rousey vs McMann), which had DC’s LHW debut. Was supposed to be against Rashad, he got injured, and we got DC vs Patrick Cummins instead :)
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I was always a Rashad fan :confused: Would have been fun!
 
Clementine said:
I was always a Rashad fan :confused: Would have been fun!
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Definitely, I’m a fan of both guys. More of a DC fan if I’m being honest.
It was a fun card though! Wonderboy stopped Whittaker on that card.
 
Petah Bash said:
I couldn’t disagree more.

DC got that recognition because he beat everyone put in front of him, rather easily. That wasn’t a forced narrative, just a result of his running through everyone.
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Its disrespectful to the era Jones steamrolled. All these guys have legendary careers and people consider DC the second best despite having a worse resume than all of them. It's disrespectful

It absolutley was a forced narrative to hype DC for winning a round against Jones coming off the Cummins and Hendo fights. There was nothing dominant about his time at LHW at all, Rumble and Gus almost KO'd him and he lost to Jones twice hes got 1 elite win other than Rumble if you want to call Volkan elite.

His whole career in both the UFC and media is based on the misfortune of others whether it being Evans getting hurt or Jones getting in a car accident at the most oppurtune time for DC to get ahead. He accomplished very little of substance in his career relative to the people hes considered superior to and the idea that DC should be the fifth fighter on a Mt Rushmore of MMA is utterly absurd. People give Khabib shit for not fighting enough but he fought a whole lot more than DC. DC finished his career 11-4.
 
Bader vs Shogun would of been interesting, Shogun has always had problems defending Takedowns, but I think he would of beaten Bader by late TKO, then he would of fought Rampage? That rematch would have been interesting, I do think LHW would continue to be a rock-paper-scissors kind of thing if Jones didn't exist or do MMA, DC would of eventually came in and defended the belt a couple of times, I could however; see Gus getting the belt prior to DC coming down to 205 or maybe even beating DC in a rematch since their first fight was a war
 
DC>Rumble>Gus
1.DC (RNC over Rumble, SD over Gus)
2.Rumble (TKO over Gus)
3.Gus (never the same after Rumble TKO)
 
Davidjacksonjones said:
LHW had a lot of great fighters who won the title around Jones era

You had Rampage Jackson, Lyoto Machida, Shogun, DC, Rashad Evans, aging Belfort all who were former champions and competed at a high level

Who was likely to hold the belt for the longest out of them? Would any of them have reigned for a long time, like GSP, Silva, Aldo etc? I think the belt would juggle around between them
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Question should be , if PEDS didn't exist.
 
yeah for sure, but we talked about it when he got his ufc contract and agreed we wanted to make sure his career had no question marks. So i retired as to not diminish his accomplishments in comparison. Kind of regret it now considering he kept taking the tainted cocaine and managed to damage his career anyway. But i think stock trading for billy’s and smashing top international models is probably a better career choice anyway.
 
Get To Da Choppa said:
It would be Daniel Cormier on a strict diet holding it down in the LHW division. Cormier only lost to Jon Jones in the 4 years that he's in the division, and beat top contenders like Rumble (2X) and Gus, and of course, the world's toughest barista, Patrick Cummins

But alas, no more chicken and cake for Cormier in LHW

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Let me start by saying "thank you".
For I started reading your post in rage, and my mind racing through all great LHW's of this sport, and couldn't find one with better resume than DC.
Especially since he started so late and on another Weight Class.....

So yeah, I 100% agree with you!
 
ferrisjso said:
Its disrespectful to the era Jones steamrolled. All these guys have legendary careers and people consider DC the second best despite having a worse resume than all of them. It's disrespectful

It absolutley was a forced narrative to hype DC for winning a round against Jones coming off the Cummins and Hendo fights. There was nothing dominant about his time at LHW at all, Rumble and Gus almost KO'd him and he lost to Jones twice hes got 1 elite win other than Rumble if you want to call Volkan elite.

His whole career in both the UFC and media is based on the misfortune of others whether it being Evans getting hurt or Jones getting in a car accident at the most oppurtune time for DC to get ahead. He accomplished very little of substance in his career relative to the people hes considered superior to and the idea that DC should be the fifth fighter on a Mt Rushmore of MMA is utterly absurd. People give Khabib shit for not fighting enough but he fought a whole lot more than DC. DC finished his career 11-4.
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I always love when people try and re-write history into DC being some dominant LHW and 2nd GOAT when LHW is where he had his hardest fights (until Stipe).

He was still winning apart from Jones yes, but he was struggling other than in his obvious gimme fights which of course he should dominantly win. And even then DC still got hurt and gassed out by a 197lb, post-surgery, 2 day notice Anderson in only a 3 round fight instead of the 5 it should've been lol.

The writing was pretty obviously on the wall that if it wasn't Jones somebody was going to beat him there.
 
Would have been DC. Had Jones never existed, DC would have cleaned out the divison and maybe would have lapped it once before retiring. He just possesses that high enough caliber of wrestling to bully that divison. Only issue, was, of course, Bones.

Jones is DC's weakness. He's rangey, has solid TDD, and can negate and punish DC in the clinch. Just a bad match-up for DC. A close fight for DC was of course Gus. But Gus is weak in the clinch, that's why DC edged him out on the score cards. In the case on Jones, who can also wrestle, both offensively and defensively, takes away DC's main weapon. This forces DC to strike, which pits him up against a guy who has more tools.

DC had only one advantage against Jones, and that was the mid or boxing range. Jones can use his reach and distance management to not fight there. So now Jones has two advantages, ranged and close/clinched based attacks. Wrestling is negated. DC has one advantage, mid-range, which Jones avoids.

Basically, no one could beat DC, but Jones at LHW.
 
I don't think so, too many of the top LHWs lost to each other. There wasn't a consistent LHW that was able to beat everyone. Cormier didn't lose to anyone aside Jones and beat everyone else, but his reign was short and we don't know how he would have done vs Shogun, Glover, Rampage, Davis, Rashad, Machida etc.
 
rstringer said:
And of course you have evidence of that?
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Jones' opponents who might otherwise have been champ without him:
  • Bader - good, never had any failures or suspicious results
  • Shogun - good, never had any failures or suspicious results
  • Rampage - was on TRT
  • Machida - failed a PED test
  • Rashad - supported TRT in MMA, though never had any failures or suspicious results
  • Vitor - failed multiple PED tests, was on TRT
  • Chael - failed multiple PED tests, was on TRT
  • Gus - good, never had any failures or suspicious results
  • Glover - good, never had any failures or suspicious results
  • Cormier - had test levels up to 23x higher than normal, that swung 10x between drug tests at UFC 182
  • OSP - good, never had any failures or suspicious results
  • Cormier - already covered
  • Gus - already covered
  • Smith - good, never had any failures or suspicious results
  • Santos - good, never had any failures or suspicious results
  • Reyes - good, never had any failures or suspicious results
Like half them are eliminated if you decided to remove PED fighters. It's not just Jon.

Which is why it's always hilarious when people try and say Jones' success is just from PEDs as though he wasn't constantly fighting guys who took PEDs too.
 
Ozze said:
From the time Jones beat the belt out of Shogun and defend it first against DC four years passed by. 9 fights in that period.

I think Shogun could've defended it against Rashad and Vitor. But he would've lost it to Gus, who would then lose it to DC.
And DC would've beat everyone Jones beat as well.

Or maybe Lyoto would win in a rubber match against Shogun and hold it until DC came along.
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Yeah to me that’s the most interesting question. No doubt DC captures the title when he hits the scene but there’s several years there where he couldn’t have held it so that period is more interesting to me.

For instance, Jones v Bader was what sealed Jon’s shot at the belt. If we assume Rashad is still injured then who does Shogun fight if Jones isn’t there? Is it Bader? How would that look?
 
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