it started with Jon Jones, young and cocky as ever, telling multi-time Olympian Daniel Cormier “I bet I can take you down” and it ended with him proving that, at least in 2015, he absolutely can.
Cormier fought admirably, especially in the early going. He was able to eventually figure out a way past Jones’ long limbs and landed some very good punches in the clinch, uppercuts and body shots as well as some good overhand rights at distance.
Jones continued to do the things he does, throwing good leg kicks, body kicks, elbows from creative angles, knees in the clinch and creative shoulder cranks in the clinch. And, he managed takedowns. He scored one in round one and two in round four, the ones in round four looking pretty easy and coming as he appeared to have established that this was his fight.
Cormier is an incredibly stiff test and Jones adjusted and did what a champion does, winning clearly on any scorecard that wasn’t desperate to find reasons he lost the fight.
Jones is the best fighter in MMA history. Anderson Silva might be the “greatest” on pure accomplishments, and Georges St. Pierre is in that discussion as well. But Jones is the best at fighting in mixed martial arts history.
- Let’s just be honest. The rest of the card was not very good. I was watching with people who watch MAYBE one MMA card a year. We used to get together to watch more often, but that has stopped in recent years. Tonight they were mostly bored, the only fight that really kept their attention was the main event. Other fights had people watching YouTube videos, talking about nonsense or checking their phones.
- The Conor McGregor interview on the PPV was a great example of this. There was a sense that it went far too long and that an advertisement on a show you just paid for was “lame.” At least for this small group, it seemed to make it far less likely that anyone would watch the McGregor fight.
- Donald Cerrone was very upset after his fight with Myles Jury, not enjoying hearing boos from the crowd. The fight wasn’t terrible, but the lack of action had made some people turn on the card before they even entered the cage. Still, Cerrone looked very good again and continues his roll as a guy who fights often and fights very well. Jury was out of his depth tonight.
- Brad Tavares remains a guy who you may often forget about but wins a lot of fights. He dominated Nate Marquardt in the best performance of his career, but Marquardt looked clearly “past his prime” throughout. Tavares needed the win though, and he certainly looked like someone who can still give people very tough fights in the middleweight division.
- Kyoji Horiguchi is likely to get a title fight with Demetrious Johnson on the strength of his win over Louis Gaudinot, but that division remains a bit of a tough sell for casual fans. Horiguchi vs Johnson will be a hell of a lot of fun to watch though.
- Hector Lombard fought a good, controlled bout against Josh Burkman. Burkman came to compete and he tried hard but Lombard was better and really took over in the third round. Burkman pointed out a lot of injuries he had in camp, but there were rumors of a Lombard illness as well in the lead-up to the fight.
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