News UFC rival Daniel Cormier wants Jon Jones removed from ‘Best Fighter’ ESPY Award

[Mr Fahrenheit]

Jones at least deserves the nomination although I don't think he will/should win.

Agree, there aren’t many other obvious options. Several belts changed hands. Champs that remained did not do so dominantly, or took a loss in another division.

 

[NoStoneUnturned]

That’s not what starching is.

Finishing him at 2:04 in the first round isn't a starching? Wasn't like he just "caught" him with a punch. A methodical whooping where your opponent looks genuinely helpless is definitely a starching, and that is what Gane received.

 

[icemun]

Francis ducked Jones and Jones ducked Brock JDS, REEM, Cain, Werdum etc.

Dont forget Jones ducked Silva, GSP, Fedor Pride too!

 

[gentel]

In all seriousness though, squashing Gane in one round while he displayed no grappling skill is very very far from the most impressive thing a UFC fighter has done this year
Beating Oliveira and then P4P #1 Volkanovski gives Islam a solid claim for best fighter

 

[Dorkman]

I mean, I do t disagree with him. That being said with his history with jones, and the fact he’s close to Islam he’s completely the wrong messenger for this lol

 

[NoBiasJustMMA]

He is salty but he is also right. Fighter of the year should have more than one fight. The win while quick looked less impressive on Jones side than it was embarrassing on Ganes side since he looked so clueless and didn't even fight the hands.

 

[NoBiasJustMMA]

It’s best comeback athlete
and best ufc fighter. Winning the hw title 3 years out you can’t beat that. And he’s always been the best fighter

Those are two different categories and it's a yearly award. Jones should get best comeback fighter no question but best fighter of 2023 should have more wins in the last year, July 2022-2023. BTW it's weird that they do a yearly award halfway through the year, so I guess it includes the second half of 2022 and first half of 2023. Based on that I think Edwards has a better claim to fighter of the year in that time period.

 

[chinarice]

DC's salt could fill an entire stadium.

He doesn't even try a little hit to hide it either but tries to convince people he isn't...

 

[Davidjacksonjones]

 

[HavokHarmon]

Yeah but everyone knew Gane was a fish out of water on the ground. For Jones, gane was an easy fight

Did you miss the dozens of threads about how Jones would struggle to take Gane down and get wrecked on the feet before the fight?

 

[markg171]

In all seriousness though, squashing Gane in one round while he displayed no grappling skill is very very far from the most impressive thing a UFC fighter has done this year
Beating Oliveira and then P4P #1 Volkanovski gives Islam a solid claim for best fighter

Islam didn’t beat Charles this year. That was last year. All he’s done this year is struggle to barely and arguably beat the champ from the weight class below him.

Meanwhile this year Jones moved up to HW after 3 years off and for the first time ever only to destroy the #1 ranked HW who’d arguably beaten the last champ. To extend his record and perfect 16 fight straight title wins.

Jones absolutely has had the better 2023 so far and it’s beyond silly to pretend otherwise.

Luckily for this award though, they go by dates between awards and not by calendar year. Which yes allows you to count the Charles win. But you said this year and that wasn’t this year but 2022. Jones can’t be faulted for not having a 2022 eligible fight when he didn’t fight in 2022 but he doesn’t get points for it either.

 

[icemun]

Did you miss the dozens of threads about how Jones would struggle to take Gane down and get wrecked on the feet before the fight?

Jones didnt want "dat HW smoke"

Gane was going to kill Jones.

that narrative switched here :20 seconds after Jones strangled him

Now Jones is scared of some guy named Pav

 

[laleggenda27]

Except it isn't. Charles literally wasn't champion.

I agree that unofficially Charles was the champion. The stripping was nonsense once the UFC acknowledged that there indeed might've been something wrong with their weigh in procedures that led to him being overweight and not that he'd just flat out missed weight. Once they did that Charles/Justin should've just been a non-title bout for Charles where he's ineligible to successfully defend but Justin can win the belt, or a non-title bout on both parts.

But officially he wasn't the champion as they had stripped him back then. So yes, they did fight each other for a vacant belt, not Charles was defending against him and Islam won it off a defending champion. Charles was not champion when Islam beat him, that's a fact.

DC's point is retarded hypocrisy to hype a team mate but downplay someone he hates by pointing out Jones only won a vacant belt when Islam also did that.

Your recitation of the facts is unnecessary--we all know what happened. But your point in incredibly pedantic. You're playing a semantics game to support a very weak argument. I'm tapping out of this silliness.

 

[laleggenda27]

Jon made him look so bad that now he will be underrated gane was at the top for reason besides francis he beat everyone they put in front of him.

Yes, he was "at the top" because he represents an emerging market and the UFC gave him highly favorable matchups. He's arguably the best striker in the division, and they exclusively matched him up against strikers. That would be the reason you're looking for.

 

[ChimRichalds]

The salt is strong here, but hes not really wrong. I think the win over Gane was phenomenal, but it was just one fight.

 

[BigDeadFreak]

DC is salty but he's also right, one win against Gane doesn't make Jones fighter of the year.

 

[HereticBD]

DC is to Jon Jones, is like what Rosie O'Donnel is to Donald Trump.

 

[chiefwiggum]

Those are two different categories and it's a yearly award. Jones should get best comeback fighter no question but best fighter of 2023 should have more wins in the last year, July 2022-2023. BTW it's weird that they do a yearly award halfway through the year, so I guess it includes the second half of 2022 and first half of 2023. Based on that I think Edwards has a better claim to fighter of the year in that time period.

I agree. But. It’s “ best ufc fighter” not fighter of the year.

I’m sure this is confusin to most. But the category of best ufc fught should go to jones. Fighter of the year wouldn’t go to jones

 

[NoBiasJustMMA]

I agree. But. It’s “ best ufc fighter” not fighter of the year.

I’m sure this is confusin to most. But the category of best ufc fught should go to jones. Fighter of the year wouldn’t go to jones

The Espy's are a yearly award so they don't list every category as a yearly award cause it would be redundant. Best fighter = best fighter of the year. I'm not confused, you seem to be though.

The awards are handed out half way through the year so the 2023 awards are likely looking at July 2022 to July 2023. In that time frame Edwards and Islam both had better years. Jones should get comeback fighter of the year though.

 

[Taric]

If literally anyone else said this people would agree with what he said and not think twice about it.