Also a pillow fisted career LHW who hadnt fought for years and was last seen getting a contentious decision win over Reyes.
Ngannou is like 270+lbs and athletic at that size too, negates the height/reach advantage Jones had over practically everyone he ever faced, had fought wrestlers like Blaydes and Stipe and beat them, and was probably the biggest puncher in the history of the sport, and you think Jon was a nightmare match up for HIM?
Like I said, it's just poor fight IQ and analysis. Jones has made a career on making guys with one hitter quitter power look silly. Even guys who supposedly had the most success against him, could barely hit him cleanly.
DC hit him clean more than every other fighter, because he's also a strategic tactician with multiple dimensions of his game, multiple plan B's and C's at every moment.
He didn't just have boxing, but intelligence of exactly how he approached Jon's range, his versatility.
You need someone whos capable of matching Jones in his multi dimensionality, both in skillset, mindset and fight IQ.
When you just have power, just have boxing, it's difficult. People don't even seem to recognize how little Jones has been hit throughout his career, they don't even know why people consider him the goat from a skill POV.
Ngannou himself seen how difficult it is to fight a good kickboxer with multiple tools on the feet when he fought Gane. He made Ngannou look sloppy on the feet and shoot for takedowns. Gane has nowhere near the defense Jones does, not even close.
I think people look to Jon's worst performances and use them to analyze him, not realizing that there's many versions of Jon.
The more he respects and fears you as a fighter, the better he is.
Like Rogan has said, you can't replicate fear. You either have it or you don't, and it's that lack of adrenaline and butterflies which comes from not having an adequate respect for them which is responsible for many great upsets. GSP Serra is a great example of this. The one fight where GSP said he slept like a baby with no fear. When you've been so far ahead of your opponents and division for your entire career, that type of motivation is always going to be an issue.
This is the version of Jones we seen during the end of his LHW run, even DC , Rashad and Smith said that for many of his fights, it looked like he was just going through the motions. All of whom have fought him.
Compare that to the version of Jones we seen against DC, both fights.
It's not even the same fighter.
I think this is also responsible for his move to HW to begin with. He needed a new challenge, something new to gain, something to actually get motivated and fired up about.
Which is generally a common issue with fighters who've been in the game at the highest level for a long time. During this stage of a fighter or athletes career, they're always looking for the "right one"
Overall, you'd think because Jones is widely considered the goat, there would actually be some effort put into understanding why he's so good..but there really isn't. People just assume because he had a close fight with Reyes, there's no way he could beat Francis, very little goes into it beyond that.
People who are confident Ngannou smoked him simply don't understand the sport.
And if they're that confident Ngannou beats him, I can understand why you'd think he ducked him, but in both cases, its a fantasy. Something people concocted in their heads, which ignores all the evidence to the contrary.
