This Saturday (or Sunday, if you’re based on the other side of the Atlantic), Jon Jones will look to get his third defense of his second light-heavyweight title reign against Dominick Reyes in the main-event of UFC 247. Jones is rightly the favorite going in this fight, but is there a chance that Reyes will be able to pull off the upset?
Jon Jones started fighting in MMA at the age of 20, and has had a great run at light-heavyweight until this point, marred only by the incidents outside cage (the hit-and-run against a pregnant woman, and drug test failures). He has only seemingly been in trouble against Alexander Gustafsson in their first fight, Daniel Cormier in their second fight, and Thiago Santos. Never mind that Jones won all three of them even though two of those were close decisions that could have gone either way. In his last two fights however, he has not looked the ‘Jon of old’, and many are wondering this the start of the decline that typically happens when you enter the sport of MMA at a very young age (see: Rory MacDonald, Jose Aldo, Shogun Rua). While some of that is true, there is a little more than just that to give Dominick Reyes a very real shot at beating Jon Jones.
Examining the ‘Jon of Old’
A closer look at Jon’s career reveals the following pattern:
- He fought a majority of fighters who were either natural middleweights, or fought at middleweight at one point (Machida, Evans, Belfort, Sonnen, Smith, and Santos)
- He has historically only shown weakness or looked less than stellar against fighters that were tall and had a similar height and reach
- If you are a good kick-boxer with a lot of power in your hands and your kicks, you can have a good showing against Jon
Dominick Reyes is a natural light-heavyweight (he isn’t likely ever going to middleweight), has a similar height and reach as Jon Jones, and is a good kick-boxer with very good hands and power in his kicks. However, there are still some questions about his experience against high-level competition.
Examining Reyes and his experience
Reyes had his first amateur MMA bout a whole three months after Jones had already beat Gustafsson in their legendary bout at UFC 165. Jones is known for his fight IQ and can fight creative ways to cause damage and find openings that others don’t see. Cormier gave him the head-tilt tick in their second fight, and Jones knocked him out. Gustafsson gave him an opening in their second fight and did not get back up. The odds that Reyes would be bringing something to the table that Jon hasn’t already seen before are slim. Just as well, Greg Jackson and team will be watching the tape on Reyes to account for anything new that they see. And to add to it, there’s Reyes’ controversial split-decision win against Oezdemir to provide additional information on ways to neutralize Reyes.
Conclusion
The reality is Jon is a favorite for all his exploits in the first-half of the last decade. However, he has fought less times than Reyes has since Reyes’ debut, and hasn’t fought the best competition, aside from Cormier. For all the reasons listed above, I will not be surprised if Reyes pulls off the upset. If he does pull it off though, I suspect it will have to be a first round KO. If not, it is likely Jon will beat him in a decision based just on his fight experience alone, and start thinking about future match-ups against either Israel Adesanya or Stipe Miocic.
Deepak Writes MMA 