Skill set, GSP vs Jones

[Goon Dog]

I agree with your analysis. I'll give Jon some intangibles over GSP though. Stuff like killer instinct. I kind of want to give Jon fight IQ also. I do feel like GSP does know what to do, but he has gotten so conservative lately so he doesn't. GSP usually makes the right move defensively to keep himself out of trouble, but he doesn't use it on the offensive end that much anymore. Jon hasn't really tasted a real loss so that may be the difference between them.

With both of these guys your basically splitting hairs.

Good analysis, IMO.

 

[EliteLurker]

GSP has better striking. A lot better. He just doesn't use it to finish, but you can see his skill level is amazingly high there.

Wrestling they are probably even both are great wrestlers.

Ground game is Jones hands down. He's submitted lots of high level guys and his GnP is in another universe compared to GSP's.

 

[mkess101]

There was a recent thread about who would be the front man if Silva lost.

Pretty much everyone said either Jones or GSP.

The main argument for Jones was he has better skills.

This is my argument but I'd love to hear yours.

Wrestling: Jones has fantastic takedowns and unstoppable GnP but I don't think it's surpassed Georges' yet. While Sonnen is a good wrestler Jones is much bigger than him leg wise so he'd have much more power in his td's. GSP has taken guys like Hughes and Koscheck down at will and these are some of the best wrestlers in the UFC. And when Georges takes you down, you don't get back up til the bell rings. Perhaps if Jones could through someone like Davis or Evans around he'd surpass GSP in wrestling but for now I'd argue no.

Jiu-Jitsu: GSP is a black belt in BJJ and has amazing ground control and has fantastic submission defense. Ever since the Hughes loss he keeps his arms safe and guys like Diaz who have a great submission offense couldn't hang on to his arm for more than a second. This however is Jones' only flaw. He says it all the time his JJ needs work. While he has a very aggressive and powerful offensive JJ his defense is rather lackluster. Good grapplers quickly block transitions on him and will eve make him lose position. Vitor managed to grab the armbar but I'm not really saying that is a weakness as much of just a simple mistake, he probably won't make again.

Striking: While GSP's main discipline is Karate (He has a 3rd degree black belt and two others black belts in different forms of Karate) this gives him an amazing defensive game and he is the champion with the best standing strike defense. (Statistically) Much like Lyoto Machida. Unfortunately his offensive striking is where his biggest flaw is. While he has the best jab and one of the best superman punches in mma. He has trouble landing it cleanly and powerfully. Unless you're Koscheck in which case your eye probably still hurts. Jones however has made a near flawless offense. It's very fast power shots from a good range thanks to his reach. And his ability to throw elbows so quickly as if they were strikes is nothing short of amazing. On the defense side of striking he has good movement and fights from a good distance. This is clearly a category Jones wins.

So my finale score would be 2-1 GSP. And I would think pure skill wise GSP is still higher than Jon. (And judging by Sherdogs p4p rankings, they agree with me too) But how do you disagree with my analysis?

Newsflash:

Jones has already taken the lead over Silva or GSP as the "frontman" for the UFC. (Dana is of course the actual frontman, but I understand you're talking about fighters only). It's not GSP or Silva doing Bud Light commercials with Dana, it's Jones. And while Jones definitely set himself back a bit with his DUI, that was a small speed bump on his road to being the most recognizable fighter in the history of the sport.

The UFC has strong fan bases in Canada and Brazil obviously, but the bread and butter is still the U.S. Vegas is still the fight capital of the world, and Jones is the American fighter of those 3. He's way younger and has been at least as dominant as either of those other two. (And there's a legit argument he's been more dominant. He's never actually been beaten--his only loss a DQ where he was mauling Hammil--and he's really only ever been in one bad spot. And he dominated and finished Belfort in that fight anyway.)

Jones has two brothers who play in the NFL, which is THE dominant sports league in the U.S. How much crossover attention that could garner Jones is obviously dependant on a lot of things, but his older brother Arthur was a very good wrestler and has expressed interest in possibly getting into MMA after he's done in the NFL.

The real question is whether Jones ever moves up to HW, and if he does what kind of success he has. If he moves up and wins there, he automatically becomes the biggest name in the history of the sport. He could become that by staying at LHW too. He'd lose some luster if he moved up and wasn't successful imo. That's the one thing that could derail him.

 

[JoshuaGilbert]

GSP is more proven but in a couple years once JBJ has matured more and spent more time with Jackson I believe he'll be the more skilled

 

[ShagginTurtles]

Top level guys? If you consider Page and a MW Vitor top level lhw's you gotta sort yourself out. It's not 2005. Also Dan Hardy is one of the toughest guys in the division and anyone else woulda tapped

This^
I don't know why people say GSP can't submit guys from this. He locked in two submissions perfectly. It's not that GSP is bad. It's that Dan Hardy has amazing heart and refused to tap. He said afterwards he thought his arm was going to pop off. Almost any other fighter would've tapped.

 

[mmafan0]

GSP has more experience. At least that isn't debatable.

Just about everything else is.

Interesting to read people saying Jon Jones hasn't approached GSP's wrestling level yet, despite the fact that Jones was winning wrestling championships as early as 2004, and GSP never competed as a wrestler.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Jones_(fighter)

 

[SocraticMethod]

This^
I don't know why people say GSP can't submit guys from this. He locked in two submissions perfectly. It's not that GSP is bad. It's that Dan Hardy has amazing heart and refused to tap. He said afterwards he thought his arm was going to pop off. Almost any other fighter would've tapped.

The fact that Hardy has multiple submission losses kind of goes against this argument. So does the fact that GSP himself said he tried to break Hardy's arm but didn't have the submissions in correctly. Specifically, he said he screwed up the kimura by failing to control Hardy's hips so as not to be able to put maximum pressure on the lock.

 

[chefdiablo]

Come on now. Before Jones came along, GSP was generally considered to be the UFC's best athlete. I do think people often overplay the "unathletic white guy" card with GSP. He's not Forrest or Fitch. He's a great natural athlete with a strong aptitude for martial arts.

Perhaps a better way to look at is this;

Have you ever seen GSP out of shape?

I don't recall ever seeing him looking overweight and generally like a guy having time off. I believe it is because he does not take time off from his diet and exercise.

That is the general difference between someone that works at their conditioning and someone that gets in shape for a fight.

Forrest is big guy and comes by in naturally, but he is never as cut as Georges is or has anywhere near the cardio.

Georges works at it all the time. If he didn't he would not be anywhere near the athlete he is today.

Buy it or not, I don't really care. In my opinion GSP is the guy that works at it instead of the guy that has natural gifts. I could very well be wrong, but his discipline seems to suggest otherwise.

It is like one of my high school friends. She was a overweight, extremely busty, smoker that now runs marathons and has totally changed her lifestyle. That was achieved through hard work and discipline. If you met her today you would never believe she was anything but thin and fit her whole life. Some people just work at it a great deal more than others.

 

[BGDDYKWL]

Their wrestling is the best in the sport, so we'll say that washes. GSP might have better defensive BJJ, but Jones has subbed more guys, so you could argue Jones' BJJ is more effective. The standup is where Jones takes this. Sure GSP always wins standing, but he has no power. Jones dropped Nachida standing, and Jones finished Shogun standing. Jones takes this.

 

[Henry Huggins]

GSP is so well rounded he does takes advantage of his opponent's weakness. Bones does what he does better than everyone else can defend it.

 

[Murica]

Go watch GSPs last fight. Then go watch Jons. Which one looked more skilled? Hell, go back 3 fights for each guy and it's the same result.

 

[Tactitus]

Spot on. ^

 

[HaterSlayer]

Buy it or not, I don't really care. In my opinion GSP is the guy that works at it instead of the guy that has natural gifts. I could very well be wrong, but his discipline seems to suggest otherwise.

It is like one of my high school friends. She was a overweight, extremely busty, smoker that now runs marathons and has totally changed her lifestyle. That was achieved through hard work and discipline. If you met her today you would never believe she was anything but thin and fit her whole life. Some people just work at it a great deal more than others.

All the champions have to work at it to maximize their natural gifts. Jon Jones doesn't just roll out of bed looking like he looks. He has to work his ass off too. GSP is a very good natural athlete also. You can look at his legs and tell. You can't just work out and end up like GSP.

 

[Deleted member 335905]

GSP is more skilled.

 

[Phisher]

This may come as a shock but the ability to use your body well to implement techniques is SKILL. That's why guys who weight and have Jon Jones height can't do what he does. He's skilled. Just like GSP can take guys down... He's built for 170 and explosive....not necessarily best technique but gets job done. That's still skill

Nonsense. When you're tall and lanky, you don't really even have to train to be a high-level MMA grappler. Look at Cyrille Diabate. He's a kickboxer by trade, but his freakish height and length have made him just as deadly as Jones in the grappling department.

 

[MrSkin]

Ill give Jones the edge in the skill of beating up smaller opponents.

 

[Shael]

Good analysis TS, wrestling is a tricky one though.

 

[Scott Lawlor]

Georges dominates opponents and wins a decision.

Jones dominates opponents and finishes them in dramatic fashion.

I actually really enjoy decisions but the way Jones beats his opponents makes me side with him.

 

[Phisher]

Come on now. Before Jones came along, GSP was generally considered to be the UFC's best athlete. I do think people often overplay the "unathletic white guy" card with GSP. He's not Forrest or Fitch. He's a great natural athlete with a strong aptitude for martial arts.

^This. When GSP was on the rise from 2005-2007, all that I used to read about him on MMA forums was what a freak athlete that he was. (This was before being a great natural athlete was considered a negative in this sport.) Now, he's Average Joe Lunchpail, who only gets by on his wits and gritty determination.

Jones, on the other hand, is a dude who's so "athletically gifted" that he doesn't even need to train to be successful. The proof of this lies with his NFL playing brothers (nevermind the fact that Jon didn't even have the physical tools to be a decent varsity football player on the high school level). This conclusion is also reached by completely ignoring the all of the anecdotal evidence from his camp about what a hard worker he is, what a fast learner he is, how easily he's adapted to the sport and the myriad examples of his natural creativity in fights. Oh yeah, he's also got an "unfair size advantage" because of his physical dimensions irrespective of the fact that he cuts the same amount to make 205 that GSP does to make 170.

Like I say everyday: MMA fans are fucking clowns.

 

[Hauptstoss]

Top level guys? If you consider Page and a MW Vitor top level lhw's you gotta sort yourself out. It's not 2005. Also Dan Hardy is one of the toughest guys in the division and anyone else woulda tapped

Oh man, I hope you are joking.