I think Jones was kind of going through the motions during some of his fights.
Much like we seen against OSP. When they did the round table thing pre gane, Smith, Rashad and DC basically said they didn't feel Jones was as motivated during the end of his LHW tenure.
There's all this talk about fear, but it's actually that fear and butterflies which allows you to perform at your absolute best as an athlete. Something we see in many sports.
Someone like Jones needs to have that in the back of his head, especially when he's been doing this for so long. You need an obstacle to overcome, a challenge or test.
It's the same healthy fear and butterflies that GSP admitted he has for all of his fights. He admitted he can never sleep before his fights, but before he fought Serra, be slept like a baby.
You could argue that peak DC would beat any HW that has ever lived. I think a lot of those questions were answered against him.
The Jones who fought him was not the same one we seen during the end of his LHW career.
After watching DC 2 several times, I'm convinced that DC was his hardest matchup and that nobody presents the same difficulty that DC did, whether it's at LHW or HW. I just don't see it.
Comparatively speaking, he's a very bad style opponent for a lot of these guys. Including Francis. We seen Gane nullify Franks boxing, forcing him to wrestle.
Jones controls the kicking distance and uses it to mitigate damage better than any MMA fighter that has ever lived.
Historically speaking, we've seen how difficult it is for an opponent with a boxing dominant attack to get inside that range and actually hit him cleanly.
And this isn't even factoring in the wrestling. I think you'd see a much more tentative Francis on the feet, knowing that one small mistake and overextension would end up with him on his back.
This can be a hard concept to grasp, but I've always said Jones tougher matchups are in lighter weight classes currently. More well rounded, younger, better recorded, better takedown defense and scrambling ability. More diverse style on the feet. The heavyweights have far more holes, on top of being slower, older, etc.
