Was this win by Jones easy to predict?

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mmainvestigations

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It was a dominant win and amazing performance considering everything. But I don't buy that this fight was easy to predict. Many questions loomed over the bout.

1) Jones success at adding lbs to his frame was in question. The dad bod look seemed to suggest issues making this work. His 10 years of bluffing a transition to HW also confused things.
2) Jones age and ring rust were factors - would time away from the cage and a long career negatively impact him ?
3) Gane had over a year to improve on his wrestling and TDD. He apparently was training in the brutal wrestling pits of Dagestan without break, or was he just playing FIFA?
4) Jones last three performances against some subpar competition (Reyes, Smith) were very underwhelming. Would he dominate a HW in a weak division or struggle to make things work against a guy much more athletic and heavy handed than his previous competition ?
5) Was Jones his usual self, aka a hyper competitive freak training nonstop during his three year break, or was he a guy struggling with demons looking for a last paycheck ? If the former, why didn't he come back sooner ?
6) was Jones Shook in the press conference, or just anxious after not having dealt with the media for a long time?

It was hard to be confident for the right reasons given the above. Curious what you based your predictions on. @xhaydenx
 
It wasn't easy
Nobody knew what was gonna happen in this fight, lot of doubts, lot of interrogants...
 
Easy-ish, i mean, it was still Jones, a career wrestler against a kickboxing guy with no wrestling or TDD, the only concerns were ring rust or probably cardio with a new weight.
 
even as a jones fan, it was very hard to predict this fight. unfortunately a lot of low information types said it was a shoe in for either guy, and now some of those dummies look really smart.
 
Kowboy the Konqueror said:
Nope. I picked Jones by submission , round 2.... ;)

The hard one was Valentina which ruined my perfect card...
Click to expand...
I picked Gane, and I say that as a Jones fan. Wasn’t sure how he would look after a long layoff and fighting in a new weight class, but his performance was shocking. I wasn’t expecting him to make it look that easy
 
I thought it was gonna be a grinding decision W by Jones. Anybody who said this outcome was "easy" to predict is lying. Jones hadn't fought in 3 years and was moving up for the first time, nobody had any idea at all how he was gonna look. While Gane is in his prime and seemed to continually be improving each time out there, it stood to reason that he was going to make things competitive. But of course hindsight is 20/20.
 
I said Gane was tailor made for Jones the day this was announced.
 
The unknowns for Jones made it hard to predict, that much we can agree on.

I don't have any beef with people on that. It's the ease with which people were giving Gane the nod, this OP included, that I think was crazy.

So many "Gane via whatever, easily" because Jon was fat, slow, plodding, 3 years out, bad performances before, but forgetting that Jones has never been an easy out for anyone, period.
 
mmainvestigations said:
It was a dominant win and amazing performance considering everything. But I don't buy that this fight was easy to predict. Many questions loomed over the bout.

1) Jones success at adding lbs to his frame was in question. The dad bod look seemed to suggest issues making this work. His 10 years of bluffing a transition to HW also confused things.
2) Jones age and ring rust were factors - would time away from the cage and a long career negatively impact him ?
3) Gane had over a year to improve on his wrestling and TDD. He apparently was training in the brutal wrestling pits of Dagestan without break, or was he just playing FIFA?
4) Jones last three performances against some subpar competition (Reyes, Smith) were very underwhelming. Would he dominate a HW in a weak division or struggle to make things work against a guy much more athletic and heavy handed than his previous competition ?
5) Was Jones his usual self, aka a hyper competitive freak training nonstop during his three year break, or was he a guy struggling with demons looking for a last paycheck ? If the former, why didn't he come back sooner ?
6) was Jones Shook in the press conference, or just anxious after not having dealt with the media for a long time?

It was hard to be confident for the right reasons given the above. Curious what you based your predictions on. @xhaydenx
Click to expand...

I replied in another thread, but will just repost here and add some more:

I don't really see how Jones winning like he did was hard to predict.

We already knew Gane has wrestling problems. We knew that Jones is an amazing wrestler.

Gane has had enough fights now that we all know his gameplan is always going to be stay at range and not-overcommit until late in fights when he's feeling much safer.

Jon and his camp obviously knew all this too. I fully expected him to march Gane down fast and try to wrestle. Playing at range with a harder hitting guy would have made no sense when it was clear what his weakness was.

My gambling read for this fight was that Jon was going to pressure hard and he would either get the take down and finish or he would get TKOd.

I was leaning sub because I thought if he started unloading strikes, it'd give someone athletic and strong like Gane chances to explode up.
There wasn't really any reason for Jon not to be able to get the td other than Gane being simply too strong for him. If that happened, I thought Jon would be forced to strike with a harder, faster striker and would get finished. I didn't expect a decision because I assumed Jon would know not to stay at range no matter what and would keep pressuring.

I gave this fight almost no chance of going to a decision. I picked Jon to win, but the odds were higher for the fight to have a finish than they were for Jon to just win, so I just bet ITD.

Jon ITD would have been better, and I'd have gone that if it weren't for too many questions about Jon. Him being away for so long and at a new weight kept me off that.
 
xhaydenx said:
I replied in another thread, but will just repost here and add some more:

I don't really see how Jones winning like he did was hard to predict.

We already knew Gane has wrestling problems. We knew that Jones is an amazing wrestler.

Gane has had enough fights now that we all know his gameplan is always going to be stay at range and not-overcommit until late in fights when he's feeling much safer.

Jon and his camp obviously knew all this too. I fully expected him to march Gane down fast and try to wrestle. Playing at range with a harder hitting guy would have made no sense when it was clear what his weakness was.

My gambling read for this fight was that Jon was going to pressure hard and he would either get the take down and finish or he would get TKOd.

I was leaning sub because I thought if he started unloading strikes, it'd give someone athletic and strong like Gane chances to explode up.
There wasn't really any reason for Jon not to be able to get the td other than Gane being simply too strong for him. If that happened, I thought Jon would be forced to strike with a harder, faster striker and would get finished. I didn't expect a decision because I assumed Jon would know not to stay at range no matter what and would keep pressuring.

I gave this fight almost no chance of going to a decision. I picked Jon to win, but the odds were higher for the fight to have a finish than they were for Jon to just win, so I just bet ITD.

Jon ITD would have been better, and I'd have gone that if it weren't for too many questions about Jon. Him being away for so long and at a new weight kept me off that.
Click to expand...

ITD was a good bet, I basically agree with your logic, but a Jones win was not sealed as what you wrote demonstrates.
 
mmainvestigations said:
ITD was a good bet, I basically agree with your logic, but a Jones win was not sealed as what you wrote demonstrates.
Click to expand...

Nothing's ever a lock, but other than that small chance that Gane would simply be too strong, I gave Gane little hope of winning.

I was like 85% Jones.
 
There were too many unknowns about Jones to call it an easy one to predict. But let's say, the outcome was easy to visualize as a possibility.
 
Jon by sub was one of the easiest calls ever. Only people who dont know shit about MMA or were disillusioned into thinking Gane wasnt a horrific grappler one of the worst in the sport thought he had a chance. Only shock is his grappling inability was somehow even WORSE than we thought which was already really really fucking bad.

https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/...ane-predictions.4280247/page-5#post-170550987
 
Only Jones being retired/inactive made it harder to predict

The skillsets involved (elite grappler vs white belt grappler) + the 30 years history of MMA made it very easy to predict

Like I said in a previous thread I made... I would have bet my house and the houses of my next 10 generations on a prime Jones vs Gane match. Prime Jones absolutely annihilates him.
 
If Gane couldn’t handle Francis wrestling, idk how anyone expected him to win.
 
ExitLUPin said:
Jon by sub was one of the easiest calls ever. Only people who dont know shit about MMA or were disillusioned into thinking Gane wasnt a horrific grappler one of the worst in the sport thought he had a chance. Only shock is his grappling inability was somehow even WORSE than we thought which was already really really fucking bad.

https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/...ane-predictions.4280247/page-5#post-170550987
Click to expand...
Did you delete your thread where you confidently picked Gane to beat Jones? Lmao
 
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