Demetrious Johnson makes his case for Jon Jones as the MMA GOAT.
There is an ongoing debate in the world of mixed martial arts as to who the greatest of all time is. Over the years there have been many fighters mentioned in this conversation but one name is brought up more than some. That name is Jon Jones. The Jones fans are adamant that he is the GOAT and now that he has won his first heavyweight title those calls for greatness have increased. With Jones, however, there is always a rebuttal by some. Although his talent and his wins in the UFC speak to his status as a GOAT nominee, his blemishes may keep him out of the running in many people’s eyes.
Jones has defended his light heavyweight title 11 times. He has also failed drug tests in the past and been stripped of his title several times. Now that he has returned from a three-year absence to take out one of the toughest men at heavyweight and to do it so quickly has once again brought his name into the “greatness” conversation.
Another man who is often mentioned in this dialogue is Demetrious Johnson. He was asked for his thought on the argument of Jones being the best and agrees with the sentiment.
Demetrious Johnson thinks Jon Jones is the MMA GOAT
Johnson currently holds the record for UFC flyweight title fight wins. He has since moved on to ONE Championship in search of more hardware. Despite all that he has accomplished in MMA, he still holds Jones as the best. He spoke to TMZ Sports about this.
“Yeah, you know, I said that last night I have always felt that from Jon Jones and you know, I was talking about it on my channel last night and I said, Jon Jones didn’t have to gain all that weight to do what he did to Gane, he didn’t have to right? And if you look at the other previous gentleman who tried to go up and be a champ-champ or win belts in a different division, they lacked the size and a little bit of the skill,” he said. “Saturday night was, I mean, he took him down and choked him out, you know, and I truly believe he can he could have done that at 205.”
Johnson took a look at fighters like Jones, Georges St-Pierre, and Henry Cejudo and gave them a leg up for winning belts in higher weight classes.
“We’ve all done some amazing things in this sport of mixed martial arts you know I’ve had the longest consecutive title defenses and I’ve also had 14 World title fights, wins,” he said. “I believe he (Jones) is at 15 now. I mean you look at GSP he took four years off and he fought in 2013 against Johnny Hendricks and he came back in 2017 and beat Michael Bisping who was a champion. I would say the one thing that eparates me from those guys or what separates those guys from me is those guys have gone up and competed and won World Championships in a different weight class to where I haven’t yet.”
Another topic with a similar tone is the UFC pound-for-pound list. After his lightweight title loss, Alexander Volkanovski remained atop the list despite feelings that Islam Makhachev would be the number one if he had won. Now it is Jones back at the top of the rankings following his win at UFC 285.
