Jon Jones made a lot of people upset with his rants about Khabib Nurmagomedov being ranked as the number one pound-for-pound fighter. However Anthony Smith seems to think that the former light heavyweight champion is just misguided.
Smith is actually the last person to get beaten by Jones inside the Octagon, without any controversy. In fact, it is the two subsequent closely contested decisions which likely contributed to Khabib overtaking Jon atop the P4P rankings, after his third straight finish against Justin Gaethje. However this is not an argument that Jones wants to hear, as he has made it clear in an overwhelming amount of Twitter posts that he was not happy with the decision made by the rankings panel.
This is number one bullshit https://t.co/Mtkvyc32NZ
— BONY (@JonnyBones) October 27, 2020
Anthony Smith Tears Down Jon Jones
Surprisingly someone who does not actually have a problem with what Jon Jones is arguing, is his former opponent Anthony Smith. Speaking on his SirusXM radio show, the former 205lb title challenger agreed with Jon that he is the GOAT in MMA. However he says that this is not what the discussion with Khabib is about, as the lightweight champ just wanted to be the best pound-for-pound fighter right now.
“I think that Jon Jones is the GOAT, I think that right now Khabib is the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world,” Smith explains. “If we look at their last three fights, I think that Khabib has tougher fights there, which kind of sucks because I’m on Jon Jones’s list. But Jon Jones had all decisions, arguably he lost two of those. Khabib has three finishes over the three toughest, baddest motherf–kers on the planet.
“I absolutely get why Jon’s mad,” Smith continued. “Khabib asked for the pound-for-pound rankings. That’s what he wanted. Jon’s making an argument for the greatest of all time. They’re talking about two completely different things and I don’t think Jon looks at it that way. He just wants number one everything. Jon Jones’s ego won’t allow him to step back and say ‘Okay maybe recently Khabib has done the heavier lifting and looked better and gotten the finishes.'”
“I just Jon Jones is arguing the wrong thing,” Smith concluded “I don’t think anyone’s arguing as far as the masses go, that he’s probably the greatest of all time. And Jon even said that, he’s like ‘This recency bias thing is just crazy!’ That’s exactly what the pound-for-pound rankings are idiot. It is a recent thing. Greatest of all time is a culmination of your entire career, as a whole, look at it from the outside and who had the tougher schedule, who had the most finishes, who beat the tougher guys in their prime, and I think that’s Jon Jones. But right now the pound-for-pound number one ranked guy should be Khabib.”
https://twitter.com/MMAonSiriusXM/status/1321279410260103169?s=09
Do you side with Anthony Smith on this debate? Or should Jon Jones still be ranked number one on the P4P list?
