Media Jon Jones admits it was “kind of nice” to fight Gane in his HW-debut, instead of Ngannou

[Pierced7681]

Juicehead played his cards right. Big Frank has the power to knock heads off, and better counterwrestling than Gane. Especially after he got humbled by Stipe. He stuffed him and Blaydes pretty good in fights prior to his exodus.

Stipe came in too light for the Ngannou rematch and it cost him. Same thing happened to Frank Mir when he rematched Lesnar at ufc 100. Came in way too light and paid the price.

 

[laleggenda27]

Ngannou is the obvious answer. He has better TDD and devastating power.

Gane is very slick on the feet, but he doesn't have the TDD to fend off competent wrestlers, his grappling is trash, and he doesn't have one-shot KO power.

Before their fight, Jones said that Gane is the least well-rounded HW in the top 10. That's a pretty damning statement about a division full of one-dimensional fighters.

 

[spinup]

I'm a huge team Francis guy. But I can't blame the UFC for not caving into his demands to box. It's his dream and he's living it and I'm happy for him. But hard to blame them for not following his dream. That was never going to happen unless he got to Conor status.

EDIT: I take that back - they could have sweetened the deal with more $. Say, 15m, and if not, 20m. At some price he would have fought. They could have been willing to pay more for the next two fights on his deal after Jones as well. They probably could have kept him.

But it would spur other fighters to play hardball as well and their precious investors would be furious at the potential profit lost.

At the end of the day, their business is increasing profit, not providing the best fights. When the two intersect everyone wins. When they don't, we get what we get.

Just a bit of respect would have gone a long way instead of trying to bully him to sign a long contract.
There were reasonable solutions. If the UFC had treated more fairly the years before, I am sure Ngannou would have been happy to take a boxing sabbatical and re-sign shortly after with them.

 

[ComfortablyNumb55]

Confused by poll.

 

[808nEffect]

I think Francis is a harder matchup than Cyrill by virtue of the fact that Cyrill got wrestled down by Ngannou. HOWEVER. Jon Jones is definitely a tougher matchup for Jon Jones than anyone else.

Nope. USADA is the toughest test for Jon Jones.

 

[Goutfather]

frank is a perfect matchup for jones. the only question for me is jones’s age / reflexes, and from what i see he has enough left to make easy work of francis. people need to watch francis’s fights again—he’s painfully limited, which he compensates for by being amazingly gifted in one area (power). everyone knows this, but apparently they need to be reminded.

and yes i know jon had some close fights, and it’s also fair to say he’s a cheater. but the people he had close fights with were much more skilled than nggano. if francis had skills on that level, i’d be more comfortable picking him to “catch” jones.

 

[Mr. Super Necessary]

The biggest miss of Dana's career was not making Jones v Ngannou when he had the chance. Would have been the biggest MMA fight of all time.

Seriously doubt it.

Would have been big no doubt. But Ngannou was never a big PPV draw, and Jones never huge either... them combined and the spectacle of it, sure, but doubt it would get close to Conor / Khabib (2.4mil).

 

[ermac88]

Jon knows better than us.

But hes faced guys with more knockouts that Francis that can actually wrestle and know BJJ.

Francis ONLY shot at beating Jones was to punch him with his fists, and NO ONE has come close to doing that.

Infact on paper Gane probably represents a bigger threat to Jones than Francis.

Whoever Jones fought, he would have been "lucky to avoid the 'other' guy"


That said, wish that fight had happened. Would have been the greatest super fight ever.

Now Francis is going to fight an elite boxer with a 0-0 pro record...

 

[Usernamehere]

It's just crazy how hindsight is 20 20 in this game. Alot of people felt like ganes footwork and striking presented way bigger problems than Frank's punching power.

.

Rampage threw bombs too. You saw that fight against Jones? Well, Ngannou is about 10x worse wrestler than Rampage.

 

[Usernamehere]

This is Ngannou kickboxing in 2014.

Amazing speed for that size

 

[IDGETKTFO]

Damn I made a small little mistake with the poll.

From now on Jon Jones counts for Ciryl Gane guys!<45>

No backsies! You FAILED!
Im debating if i should choose Ngannou, or Jon Jones just for the LuLZ.

 

[ThaiSexPills]

A lot of other people were also saying Gane was too one dimensional. A statement that was reinforced when he got wrestle-hugged by Ngannou of all people.

Hindsight is just an excuse for people that didn't know what they were watching.

When we said that, we were told Gane beat Francis, we were wrong and he was a future champ who got robbed by the judges.. lol. It was a small minority of us who thought Gane would lose to Jones. I picked Francis to beat him too. HW is not the place to be pillow fisted. One punch power rules supreme there

Then we got laughed at for saying what you just said until it happened because Jones haters were so sure literally anyone could beat him. I jusy couldn’t see how a guy who got outgrappled and beat by a brawler who blew out a knee and had no grappling background would beat Jones. I don’t see him beating Spivak either.

Gane will get beat by anybody who can grapple. He’s talented but there’s only so many fat, plodding strikers with no other tools to beat up on and he almost got finished by one of those too. He doesn’t have the grappling to compete or the power to push back anybody thinking of trying to grapple with him.

 

[SG123]

It's just crazy how hindsight is 20 20 in this game. Alot of people felt like ganes footwork and striking presented way bigger problems than Frank's punching power.

Man I miss Francis, they really dropped the ball letting this guy leave.

The vast majority of people gave Gane no chance

 

[Prologue]

Jon Jones beats Jon Jones 11 times out of 10.

 

[Prologue]

Damn I made a small little mistake with the poll.

From now on Jon Jones counts for Ciryl Gane guys!<45>

Jon Jones has proven time and time again he is the perfect match up against himself. Poll stands.

 

[checktheknuckles]

And people really wonder why Jon didn't fight at HW until Ngannou left?

 

[John makfresshi]

There's a reason Picto ducked Big Frank as hard as he did. Now he'll never have the chance to be the actual Ultimate Circus HW champion. Very sad.

Member when Fedor came out of retirement and won the UFC title? Oh wait, he fought Jaideep Singh instead

 

[Poirierfan]

Its also kind of nice for him being able to pulse and shit like that

Jones is one of a kind, I still don't think I've heard of anyone pulsing since Jon. He can do it all I tell ya.

 

[jsbx45]

Seriously doubt it.

Would have been big no doubt. But Ngannou was never a big PPV draw, and Jones never huge either... them combined and the spectacle of it, sure, but doubt it would get close to Conor / Khabib (2.4mil).

We'll never know. Don't really know PPV numbers, but I think it would have produced very large ones, simply because of the spectacle - which in this case would have been well deserved.

 

[FlyingDeathKick]

Poll results are nuts to me. Ngannou is crazy strong and starched every wrestler he went in there with aside from Stipe in the first fight. Stipe rematch showed hos improved wrestling. Gane is a good striker but nowhere near as dangerous. He can kick and knee people in the head repeatedly without dropping them, it takes him a volume of strikes to get a tko where as Ngannou ends people with 1 shot.