When was Jones prime?

When was his prime?


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He started being dominate in kind of a transitional time for MMA in my opinon. So that kind of makes this question hard. He went from fighting the older more one dimensional fighters to fighting the newer breed that are more diverse in what they do. Just my .02 but I think he is in his prime but everyone has been studying him for years so the gap is closing with a quickness.
 
The Jones that struggled with Smith, Santos and now Reyes would have been destroyed by DC.
 
His present! He is in his prime. He's undefeated. Until he loses atleast two times. He's a GOAT.
 
Chael Sonnen - middleweight - 6'1
Shogun - could've cut to middlweight - 6'1
Rampage - never in shape in ufc - 6'1
Machida - middlweight - 6'1
Rashad - fought at middleweight - 5'11
Vitor - middleweight - 6'0


Gus 6'4
Reyes 6'5
DC Olympic wrestler
Anthony Smith 6'4
Santos 6'2
OSP 6'3


Can you see the size pattern?

NaH BrO the whoLe 05 GraNd PrIx wouLd KiLL tHe UFC ToDaY
 
Unfortunately the game caught up to him. He's not ahead of the curve as much as he was when he came along.

That is one definition of falling out of prime.
 
His prime ended when he was last busted for juicing after the Cormier fight. Hasn't looked the same ever since.
 
Today’s fans are modern day Conor fans, just new casuals so they don’t know the past Jones opponents.
That said, past Jones was in his prime via JUICED TO THE GILLS.
 
The fighters he’s beating now are much better than the fighters he was beating in 2011-2012. The Jon Jones of today would still finish those guys.
The Jon Jones that just lost to Reyes would not have beat Rashad Evans or Machida IMO. I think he would have struggled with the Shogun that he won the belt from too. Even Fighters like Brandon Vera or Page would have been much tougher fights for current Jones.

I think that his first fight with DC was the best version we ever saw of him. The intensity and Pace in that fight was just fucking insane if you rewatch it. That right there was the two best fighters in the history of this sport going at after the best camps of their careers with insane amounts of animosity toward each othe
 
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Past is the correct answer. It's pretty tough to have that same fire and motivation after so many years on top, not to mention the physical toll on the body of fighting the best guys in the world for over a decade.

With that said, I expect there are still some spectacular performances from him to come in the future. Perhaps the challenge of moving up to HW will light that fire in him again.
That is as real as it gets. Sounded like a sermon
 
It almost seems like JJ is the only cheater, when reading these posts.

Of course Yoel Romero, GSP and many others are 100% god-fearing natties compared to Jon Jones.

Fucking manchilds<{cruzshake}><{hughesimpress}><36>
show me their MULTIPLE failed tests or even one failed test, oh you can't? and jones set the record for failed tests? huh, weird.


lmao you tried.
 
In my opinion, prime Jones was pre controversey Jones. Regardless of PEDS, weather he did them or not, the fact remains is since all of his funky drug test and out of cage issues, he doesn't look the same and I'd say worse each time out. He seems slower, less dynamic with his strikes and his wrestling seems to be gone if not going quickly. This seems to be the version of Jones we can expect going forward, he could probably still pull out a great performance but you just kinda get the sense that recently, it seems he's on borrowed time.
 
Present just like the picograms in his system
 
In my opinion, prime Jones was pre controversey Jones. Regardless of PEDS, weather he did them or not, the fact remains is since all of his funky drug test and out of cage issues, he doesn't look the same and I'd say worse each time out. He seems slower, less dynamic with his strikes and his wrestling seems to be gone if not going quickly. This seems to be the version of Jones we can expect going forward, he could probably still pull out a great performance but you just kinda get the sense that recently, it seems he's on borrowed time.
This is fair. He hasn't had the same aura since the PED busts.
 
Still in his prime. He just beat a 12-0 guy who ran through the division (aside from volkan).

He pretty much beat the new jon Jones of this era.
 
What fighters now would have run through prime machida, bader, rampage Jackson, etc?
They weren't prime when Jones fought them. Bader hadn't hit his prime yet, and the others were well past. Maybe Machida, but he's a mw and gave up a lot of size to Jones.
 
Chael Sonnen - middleweight - 6'1
Shogun - could've cut to middlweight - 6'1
Rampage - never in shape in ufc - 6'1
Machida - middlweight - 6'1
Rashad - fought at middleweight - 5'11
Vitor - middleweight - 6'0


Gus 6'4
Reyes 6'5
DC Olympic wrestler
Anthony Smith 6'4
Santos 6'2
OSP 6'3


Can you see the size pattern?
I posted a whole thread about this and people flamed me.
 
Physically and athleticly your prime years are early to mid 20's. Even if you factor in experience and knowledge gained as you train/fight you could only realistically push it back to maybe like 28 or 29 (and that is very generous).

No reasonable person who knows anything would argue anything other than his prime was in his past.
 
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