Is it time or hate that prevents Jon Jones being the LHW GOAT in some eyes?

i'm saying noone else has a better argument.

Shogun's entire career is atm significantly more impressive than JBJ's, Wand and Chuck have can have decent arguments made for them, Rampage has a solid case going for him as well, etc.


We're talking ALL-TIME here. Not just in recent years. We're discussing entire careers. Saying JBJ is the LHW GOAT this early is shoddy at best.
 
If Jones were to get in a plane crash and we looked at his resume and passed the BS there would be no other logical choice for LHW goat.
 
Shogun's entire career is atm significantly more impressive than JBJ's, Wand and Chuck have can have decent arguments made for them, Rampage has a solid case going for him as well, etc.


We're talking ALL-TIME here. Not just in recent years. We're discussing entire careers. Saying JBJ is the LHW GOAT this early is shoddy at best.

you're just wrong. you are not looking at those guys with the same scrutiny you are giving jones. there's really no argument for those guys over jones. rampage???? c'mon.
 
you're just wrong. you are not looking at those guys with the same scrutiny you are giving jones. there's really no argument for those guys over jones. rampage???? c'mon.

Wtf is so laughable about Rampage being in the running at least?

Wins over

Igor
Randleplex
Bustamante
Liddell x2
Arona
Ninja Rua
Hendo
Wand
Machida

Now if you wanted to nitpick you could say Bustamante was undersized (former UFC MW champ) as was Ninja, also you could say Wand was past his prime.

Still leaves you with

Igor
Randleplex
Liddell x2
Arona
Hendo
Machida


None of whom were past their prime, shells of their former selves, or notably injured coming into the fight.
Which is still more impressive when using the same amount of scrutiny towards Jones' record.
 
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He is the GOAT and he can become the GOAT of all time pound for pound. He has not lost yet (Wont include Hamill). He has all the assets to contiunue his reign for several years. But he needs to beat Gustafsson in dominate fashion in order to maintain his legacy. In theory he has not lost yet, Silva has, whome I consider to be the best the best of all time right now.
 
Who do you think the LHW GOAT is, and explain why their case is better than Jones'.


Wow, let me see:
From the top of my hand, here are the names that IMO are ahead of Jones (looking at the complete career):

I consider Wandi to be my top LHW. His career up until he fought Cro Cop was something you can't really put a blame on (OK, so he is one of my favorite fighters also, and I know I might be biased and a little blind here :redface:). But IMO there is place for debate in his behalf

But I also respect the heck of Hendo or Shogun and what they did throughout their long careers.

then there's obviously Tito and Chuck.

I don't meant to claim Jon is not above them.
IMO he should be a lock to get there. But I rather discuss after he accomplished more and ruled over a couple of years. After all, we don't know if he retires tomorrow, and never get the longevity to cement his legacy.
 
On purely a "name game"? Possibly.

But objectively no. He really doesn't considering how many of the fighters he fought were years past their prime or MW's moving up to fight him.


The notable wins JBJ has over young/prime/or close to prime guys

Rashad
Machida
Bader
Gus


That's about it. I'd like to be proven otherwise.

You are rewriting history. How the fuck is Shogun not on the list but Machida is? Shogun was coming off a KO victory of him right before he fought Jones.

Also despite the age/size difference Vitor is coming off two of the better wins he's had in years. How can you argue that in the last 5 years Vitor isn't a top notch guy? He's only lost twice.
 
Jones should clearly be the lhw goat. It's just around here there are huge shogun fans, rampage fans, and machida fans who now can't stand him and refuse to admit how amazing he is.

Jones fought shogun in a months notice. Yet people say he's only fighting middleweights (sonnen, Belfort) he even turned down the sonnen fight originally, got shit on for that too. He can't win on sherdog.

I do not like Jones at all but the simple fact is he has had the most impressive career of any LHW in the History of MMA.
 
you leaving because you said shogun was better than jbj
and people are calling you on it

in no way is shogun the lhw goat

No I edited my post because I wanted to respond logically instead of being nonsensical. I wanted to post facts which I did.


Ok, now that we've gotten Rampage out of the way, how is Shogun not in the running?

Please enlighten me.
 
He would be easily Lhw goat if he didn't lose to Gustafsson.
 
You are rewriting history. How the fuck is Shogun not on the list but Machida is? Shogun was coming off a KO victory of him right before he fought Jones.

Also despite the age/size difference Vitor is coming off two of the better wins he's had in years. How can you argue that in the last 5 years Vitor isn't a top notch guy? He's only lost twice.

How is that rewriting history?

Like it or not Shogun's ruptured both his ACL's a combined total of 3 times since 2007 and has looked like shit compared to his peak with each rupture and subsequent surgery. By the time he fought Jones (Machida too for that matter) he was far past his physical prime. OBVIOUSLY slower, less explosive, less athletic, worse balance, etc. Although I didn't think this needed to be pointed out. If you can't see that then you've probably never followed the guy's career pre-UFC.

Shogun is where a lot of Sherdog posters are either knowledgeable or completely ignorant (the latter of which still have no problem spouting off about what they don't know). Anybody who says Shogun was remotely in his prime after he started rupturing his ACL's, belt or not can't be taken seriously.

I didn't say Vitor wasn't a top notch guy. He is. He and Chael are both undersized as fck compared to Jones.
 
No I edited my post because I wanted to respond logically instead of being nonsensical. I wanted to post facts which I did.


Ok, now that we've gotten Rampage out of the way, how is Shogun not in the running?

Please enlighten me.

this guy nailed it

"Wow, let me see:
From the top of my hand, here are the names that IMO are ahead of Jones (looking at the complete career):

I consider Wandi to be my top LHW. His career up until he fought Cro Cop was something you can't really put a blame on (OK, so he is one of my favorite fighters also, and I know I might be biased and a little blind here ). But IMO there is place for debate in his behalf

But I also respect the heck of Hendo or Shogun and what they did throughout their long careers.

then there's obviously Tito and Chuck.

I don't meant to claim Jon is not above them.
IMO he should be a lock to get there. But I rather discuss after he accomplished more and ruled over a couple of years. After all, we don't know if he retires tomorrow, and never get the longevity to cement his legacy."

Even if I didn't think JBJ was the lhw goat, which i do think, I would have Wandi and Hendo above shogun. Nothing against shogun and I like him, but I think Wand and Hendo have better careers. Liddell and Shogun would be the tight argument. Shogun had his pride days and some ufc time chuck had his ufc title run.
 
Wtf is so laughable about Rampage being in the running at least?

Wins over

Igor
Randleplex
Bustamante
Liddell x2
Arona
Ninja Rua
Hendo
Wand
Machida

Now if you wanted to nitpick you could say Bustamante was undersized (former UFC MW champ) as was Ninja, also you could say Wand was past his prime.

Still leaves you with

Igor
Randleplex
Liddell x2
Arona
Hendo
Machida


None of whom were past their prime, shells of their former selves, or notably injured coming into the fight.
Which is still more impressive when using the same amount of scrutiny towards Jones' record.

yeah, igor and randleman were in their primes, but shogun and rampage weren't? and nice to glance over his losses. it's pretty ridiculous to put rampage ahead of jones.
 
Well, the facts that he's made a habit of making himself unlikable and arrogant in public doesn't help his case. His remarks discrediting Gus' performance and generally insulting the likes of Hendo and Machida in the past didn't help, not to mention his dirty/classless tactics inside the cage (eyepokes, knee kicks, dumping Machida's unconcsious body, etc.) Also, getting UFC 151 cancelled and coming off as a complete hypocrite (rightfully) for his DUI and bogus faux christianity.

He's basically done far more to be a villain than a hero for MMA fans, even though the UFC has done everything it could to paint him in a positive light as a future face of the company.

There's also the fact his resume, while extremely strong on name value, is a lot less strong on context.

Let's take a look at his "legendary, dominant" run:

1) took the title from Rua, an undersized LHW with no TDD who was coming off a 10 month layoff and recovering from another knee surgery.

2) defended against Rampage, who he again held significant physical advantages over. This in addition to the fact Rampage hadn't had a KO win in almost 3 years, and in his last 4 fights had uninspiring wins over Hamill and Jardine sandwiching a loss to Rashad and an uninspiring win over Machida even Rampage felt he lost. In short: Rampage was well out of his prime long before the Jones fight.

3) defended against Machida, who stepped in on short notice to fill in for Rashad Evans. Lyoto's most recent win was against Couture, with his other fights before that being a controversial loss to Rampage, a KO loss to Shogun, and a controversial win over Shogun. Good win for Jones, even if Machida is a natural middleweight and was a late-notice substitute opponent whereas Jones had a full camp behind him. Machida was still relatively close to his prime, even if undersized and short notice. Probably the second best win on Jones' run as a result.

4) defended against Rashad, who Jones had huge physical advantages over again. There has been lots of talk regarding a possible move to middleweight for Rashad. Rashad also essentially gave up and went into survival mode after round 2, enabling Jones to coast to an easy win.

5) after the UFC 151 debacle, Jones rejects Chael as a late-notice substitute, despite Chael being a middleweight, an easy style matchup, and the fact that Jones had just completed a full training camp. Instead, he gets Vitor, another short-notice middleweight opponent with injuries going into the fight. Jones still almost gets his arm snapped off before finishing Vitor in the 4th.

6) despite the UFC's initial effort to reschedule the Hendo fight for the super bowl weekend card, Team Jones claims he won't be good to go by then due to his "arm injury." Instead, he gets middleweight/easy style matchup Chael, instead of Hendo, who also would have been good to compete in April and would have posed more of a problem than Chael. Jones then proceeds to smash Chael, but not before evading a possible doctor stoppage loss.

7) instead of a Machida rematch (which Lyoto had won two title eliminators to get), Jones picks Gustafsson, feeling that the less-proven Gus would be easily dispatched, and prove to be a showcase for Jones, proving that his dominance was built on allegedly amazing skills, not on simply being bigger than his opponents. Jones is a huge favorite going into the fight; most people accept it as a showcase for Jones. Instead, Alex destroys the script, soundly outboxing and mutilating Jones for 3 full rounds and 4:30 of round 4, all while Jones' supposedly godlike wrestling and ground game prove completely useless against the first opponent his size. Gus even shows himself physically stronger than Jones a couple of times. Based on being the champion and edging the last 5:30 minutes of a 25 minute fight, Jones gets a dubious decision most MMA fans disagree with, while being taken out of the arena on a stretcher.

8) rather than give Gus a rematch (which he deserves, considering, you know, most people with a functioning brain without an obvious dog in the situation feel that Gus won the fight), Jones asks for Teixeira, a much slower, shorter, less rangy opponent; in other words, a much easier style matchup then the disastrous blown cherrypick that was Gus. Despite giving immediate rematches in other controversial decisions (Shogun/Machida and Penn/Edgar I come to mind, with neither Edgar nor Machida looking like they'd been run over by a steamroller after the fight as Jones did.) The UFC gives Jones the Golden Boy his wish, despite Jones himself earlier taking a dump on Teixeira's credibility as a challenger and degrading Gus's performance in their fight.

So here's a good question: given all of the above, should MMA fans regard a man where all but one of his title fights were size mismatches (and three of them against middleweights in Lyoto, Vitor, and Chael, with Rashad being an additional future middleweight) in high esteem?

Bottom line, Jones got a lucky break and narrowly escaped with the belt against the only opponent he's fought he didn't hold every physical advantage over, and has also received extremely favorable matchmaking from the UFC brass based on the context.

Based on name value, Jones is the LHW GOAT. But he's nowhere close to being a P4P talent or an MMA GOAT in the making though, especially when its been vividly demonstrated how heavily he depends on physical advantages for his success, rather than, you know, actual skills. Unlikability has nothing to do with his not being regarded in the way his fans and the UFC would like you to view him (as an MMA GOAT in the making.) He isn't held in that esteem because his dominance is manufactured rather than natural, as Gus emphatically proved last week.
 
You are rewriting history. How the fuck is Shogun not on the list but Machida is? Shogun was coming off a KO victory of him right before he fought Jones.

Also despite the age/size difference Vitor is coming off two of the better wins he's had in years. How can you argue that in the last 5 years Vitor isn't a top notch guy? He's only lost twice.

his victories were in MW though.
 
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