Is Jon Jones the Most Blatant Example of a Champ Ducking Ever?

[RockyLockridge]

Why did Jon only move up to heavyweight once Francis was gone and the belt was up for grabs? Its just like gsp moving up to MW the moment the weakest champion ever has the belt. That is cherry picking.

He was moving up to fight francis and the UFC tried to make that fight for an entire year before giving up because the UFC and francis couldn't come to terms, hence jones vs Gane. you act as if jones made the decision to fight for the HW title AFTER Ngannou left. Jones moving to HW was pre-ordane from the day he relinqished his LHW title. When Jones made the decision to move up francis had the title. If you dont remember, the UFC had a huge problem getting francis to fight cyril gane too. Jones vs Francis had a small window of time to happen. and did not happen because of either francis or the ufc. (depending on who you think was being rational)

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

The HW belt has been held up for this long

Held up? We've had 3 title fights since March 2023 with #4 happening in 2 months.

 

[TerrorTimmy]

What a stupid thread. Jon Jones is the GOAT. I know you can't sleep well at night.

Your post and your username don't match.

Guess nobody should take you seriously

 

[markg171]

Let me help you by making it simpler for you:

The HW belt has been held up for this long for Stipe, a guy who hasn't fought in years and does not have a win against a single current heavyweight ufc fighter.

Make it make sense.

What does that have to do with the fact that Aspinall has never beaten Stipe to take the shot from him but instead has only beaten completely different fighters who never had the shot either?

I know you guys aren't dumb enough to not know that the reason the interim title holder usually get the next shot is because the interim title fight featured the existing challenger fighting another contender instead of the champion who's out of their fight. Of course that winner gets the next shot as either the original challenger defended this position as next in line or lost it so of course the other guy gets it. This never happened here because the UFC moronically didn't go through with Stipe/Sergei (or hell Aspinall) and instead pulled Stipe too rather than put his title challenge on the line like usual.

You're free to not like that Stipe was ever getting a title shot in the first place, but nobody's doing anything wrong here. Jon and Stipe are fighting as had always already been agreed upon because nobody beat Stipe to take it from him. And Aspinall's next in line because he won all these other unrelated contender fights and is #1 contender.

It's not that hard. You guys are all just pretending it is because you think Tom has the best chance at maybe someone finally beating this old man Jones version. None of you would care this passionately if Gane/Volkov, who are next after Tom, were instead the interim champ.

 

[Iroh]

People are already so dismissive of his win over gane as a "so what?"

They'll do the same with aspinall. watch.

People hate jon jones that will always cloud their judgement of him as a fighter, He will never be fairly assesed as a fighter much like conor.

Gane clearly got exposed for being very one dimensional and therefore a very favorable stylistic match up for Jon. Aspinall, on the other hand, is known for and being praised for being very well rounded, and therefore a hard stylistic match up for Jon.

I doubt most people would see those two wins in the same way. Of course, there will always be haters, but plenty of people will give a lot of credit if Jon would beat Aspinall, IMO.

Not that I think he would beat him, but we'll never find out, probably.

 

[JKS]

The biggest problem is the UFC decided to make Tom vs Pav an interim title fight instead of a #1 contender fight. I don't think people would have been AS pissed if Tom wasn't holding the interim title and he had to wait for Jon to fight Stipe.

I guess they knew Jon would be out a year and wanted a champ in that time to fill in. Or maybe they were concerned Jon wouldn't come back at all

 

[RockyLockridge]

I guess they knew Jon would be out a year and wanted a champ in that time to fill in. Or maybe they were concerned Jon wouldn't come back at all

Well if I remember correctly, The UFC had Pavlovich has the offical back up.


They got tom to agree to this on pretty short notice. It's possible that a title belt was the only way they could convince tom to take this fight.

 

[Paolo Delutis]

Yes, yes it is.

I've been following MMA since the early 2000's and I honestly can't think of a more aggreges example. Not one that carries this much weight.

I have to say though this cherry picking and holding up belts, while awful for guys in Tom's position, is good for the sport of mma as a whole.

Now before you go flaming my account hear me out....

The more that the UFC does this kind of garbage the less and less credible that they are as the organization with the best in the world fighting the best in the world, which is great for the sport of mma as a whole and will create more competition between organizations to actually compensate the fighters and treat them fairly instead of claiming they all "don't wanna fight"

Also the fans are getting tired of the manufactured hype and just not tuning it for it nearly as much as we used to.

As of today the UFC does not give a single F about the fans and would rather protect their favorite fighters and hold up divisions to try to create money fights but my prediction is they are going to get more and more push back to the point of finally realizing that trashing all the fighters and fans who disagree with them all for the sake of a single event or fighter is actually not a wise choice.

Dana did amazing things for the sport of mma but those days are long gone, now I feel like dana and the ufc are a complete detriment to the sport of mma and we would have way more top level talent if they actually treated fighters fairly instead of trying to rip them off every chance they get all in the name of a money fight.

It boggles my mind how they can be so near sighted....

How many times am i going to have educate you guys. ..




Fact 1 ..


Has Jones ever officially been offered to fight Tom ?


Answer : NO , so how can he be ducking a fight he was never officially offered to take

But but bbut he said....ya and conor said he'd fight Diego sanchez and Michael Chandler...so what??


Fact 2.


Jones is the actual champion, the only reason we have a interim champion is because Jones got hurt and Dana sold a fight between two top contenders as a "title fight".... Without Jones being hurt Tom isnt even in the conversation for a title shot yet and was likely going to fight Derrick lewis on a fight night card somewhere..


Fact 3.


Jones retiring after being undefeated for the better part of 20 years in two divisions will not and can not be considered a duck , the guy has put his time in, this isnt some new champion who just exploded on the scene... he's litterally been the champion since he was 23 ...the youngest in promotional history. ...at some point your going to have to stop somewhere... It doesn't have to end in the BJ Penn dumpster dive for it to be over.


Fact 4 .

Stay mad ... Jones is a cheating piece of shit...but is likely the overall GOAT of this shit ...for the time being....it is what it is....

 

[RedDevilFan]

Even if I grant you that, Stipe hadn't fought in 4 years and Tom was clearly the more deserving contender, so it's still a blatant duck. Like i said, if Jon wants a soft touch farewell fight then give up the belt, otherwise we have to call it a duck.

No. its not a duck when Aspinall was not a contender and not in contention. To duck means to evade someone and that would imply intent to evade Aspinall over Stipe which is not the case. The Stipe fight was put in place before Aspinall was even a top 4 division fighter and before he was in contention for any belt or contender ship. A blatant duck means he purposely ducked an opponent for another one. which is not the case as Aspinall was a nobody at the time with a loss to Blaydes, and not on the forefront for any contender-ship. Also no one at the time had an issue with the fight and Sergei was happy to be the backup. The reason for the fight was legacy and that is a good enough reason to make a fight and a reason why fights are made in the UFC.. The intent was legacy and they made it clear.

 

[ThePimblettEra]

JBJ is the GOAT but he clearly wants no part of Tom at this point in his career.
It is what it is.

Ya'll just need to be impartial and objective on the situation.

And I say this as someone who REALLY wants this fight to happen.

 

[JKS]

Well if I remember correctly, The UFC had Pavlovich has the offical back up.


They got tom to agree to this on pretty short notice. It's possible that a title belt was the only way they could convince tom to take this fight.

I think so as well.

 

[markg171]

Daniel Cormier refused to come back and defend his LHW belt against Jones 3, but was fine with fighting Lewis instead so Jones/Gus 2 was made for a new vacant LHW belt as Cormier was being stripped for refusing to defend.

The night before he was to be stripped he pettily vacated the belt so that history wouldn't have him officially go down as being stripped for refusing to defend against Jon (or having fought him and losing it to him again) but rather his LHW reign would end by him voluntarily vacating the belt.

 

[Gamer2k4]

? Aspinall has been interim champion since November 2023. It's not like he won a minute ago. What's the point of having an interim champion if the plan is not to unify the titles?

So he can feel good about himself in the meantime? I don't know; if it was up to me he WOULDN'T have the interim title. But it's not my choice, and it's not Jon's. The UFC gave Aspinall the interim belt, so they're the ones who need to answer these (totally fair) questions.

 

[Lee Danger]

Conor, two times.

 

[Superman Elbow]

Daniel Cormier refused to come back and defend his LHW belt against Jones 3, but was fine with fighting Lewis instead so Jones/Gus 2 was made for a new vacant LHW belt as Cormier was being stripped for refusing to defend.

The night before he was to be stripped he pettily vacated the belt so that history wouldn't have him officially go down as being stripped for refusing to defend against Jon (or having fought him and losing it to him again) but rather his LHW reign would end by him voluntarily vacating the belt.

I don't blame dc at all for saying that, at that point, Jon was not worth the trouble. Jon uses steroids the last time and seriously smashed DC in a way that many people don't believe he would have been able to without the steroids. Plus dc already had a fight cancelled becasue of jon using steroids. Also you have the fact that the ufc protected jon over and over and gave him acceptances. Jon should not have been allowed to fight for the belt again that quickly after all of his trouble at that point and DC was smart to tell them that he wouldnt be the victim again of jon using steroids and the UFC's favoritism.

 

[Superman Elbow]

What does that have to do with the fact that Aspinall has never beaten Stipe to take the shot from him but instead has only beaten completely different fighters who never had the shot either?

I know you guys aren't dumb enough to not know that the reason the interim title holder usually get the next shot is because the interim title fight featured the existing challenger fighting another contender instead of the champion who's out of their fight. Of course that winner gets the next shot as either the original challenger defended this position as next in line or lost it so of course the other guy gets it. This never happened here because the UFC moronically didn't go through with Stipe/Sergei (or hell Aspinall) and instead pulled Stipe too rather than put his title challenge on the line like usual.

You're free to not like that Stipe was ever getting a title shot in the first place, but nobody's doing anything wrong here. Jon and Stipe are fighting as had always already been agreed upon because nobody beat Stipe to take it from him. And Aspinall's next in line because he won all these other unrelated contender fights and is #1 contender.

It's not that hard. You guys are all just pretending it is because you think Tom has the best chance at maybe someone finally beating this old man Jones version. None of you would care this passionately if Gane/Volkov, who are next after Tom, were instead the interim champ.

You are right I wouldn't care if it was Ganes, Volk or Tom fighting Jon. At least they have fought in the last 3.5 years and have wins over fighters who are in the ufc.

I don't need to justify how Tom deserves a title shot, it is self explanatory.

I want you to explain why stipe does half way through 2024

 

[Superman Elbow]

Held up? We've had 3 title fights since March 2023 with #4 happening in 2 months.

Sorry you are right, I should have worded that differently.

So Stipe just has a reservation for a title shot that never expires?

Please explain how he deserves a title shot, and it better be realllllly good to make up for the fact that Stipe has no wins over any current contracted ufc heavyweight.


On a personal note,
I gotta admit, Im surprised by this rare L take by you @Only Here for Attachments I thought you were one of the real ones that were here for the love of mma, not a ufc shill.

 

[SuspectChin]

Rousey ducking Cyborg (twice) is pretty high on that list.

 

[CatchtheseHands]

It's pretty much the same thing.

I know but at least if a belt wasn't involved, Tom having to wait wouldn't look so bad on the UFC and there wouldn't be as much outrage.

I guess they knew Jon would be out a year and wanted a champ in that time to fill in. Or maybe they were concerned Jon wouldn't come back at all

That could be a possibility. Another possibility is it being due to the UFC's obsession with needing to have title fights headline every PPV.

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

On a personal note,
I gotta admit, Im surprised by this rare L take by you @Only Here for Attachments I thought you were one of the real ones that were here for the love of mma, not a ufc shill.

Now that's an L take on me. I'd love nothing more than for UFC to go out of business so I could troll people here. Being a fan of Jon and Stipe and indifferent about Tom does not make me a UFC shill. I'd love to hear the rationale behind that.