When Jon Jones became the youngest UFC champion in history, at age 23, after less than three years in the sport, there was talk that he could wind up being the greatest UFC fighter ever.
Three years later, Jones has gone through a number of phases. At first he was the rising superstar, smashing established stars with far too much ease. Three years ago, it was his night, winning the UFC light heavyweight title with a completely dominant performance over Mauricio Shogun Rua.
Since that time, hes made seven title defenses, the third most in a single reign in UFC history, behind ten by Anderson Silva (2006-2013) and nine by Georges St-Pierre (2008-2013). It should be noted that Jose Aldo has made eight title defenses since he won the WEC featherweight title in 2009, and is about the same age as Jones.
But no matter how good he looks, Jones has struggled outside the cage. He seemed destined to be the sports golden boy on the night he not only beat Rua, but apprehended a mugger at a park a few hours before the fight, not far from the arena in Paterson, NJ.
But things changed. In a match against former training partner Rashad Evans, who has generally been a heel, Evans managed to throw a lot of questions into Jones character. Jones talking about religion and how you would never find him as a star athlete with a DUI blew up in his face when he crashed into a telephone pole in the early morning after a night out, with two women in his car, neither of them being the mother of his children. Evans said that Jones wasnt the person he portrayed, something insiders werent shy about. Long before he made headlines and his fan base started eroding, those in UFC were talking about how he had changed from the very likeable guy who first came into the company only a few months after taking up the sport.
After refusing to fight, killing UFC 151, the show that never took place when Dan Henderson was injured and he wouldnt fight late replacement Chael Sonnen on short notice, he was vilified. While he had every right to do what he did legally, very few fighters would have turned down what was many saw as essentially a gift by management as an opponent that would sell the fight, thus hed make more money, but wasnt in fight shape and was a weight class lower and not in his league as a fighter. But he felt he had trained for a different style fighter and wasnt willing to risk the title against Sonnen under those circumstances, although he later fought him and finished him in the first round last year.
Since that time, his popularity declined. While many felt Jones could have been marketed as a heel, since most fans didnt like him, a role that certainly has made hundreds of millions for Floyd Mayweather, Jones didnt want any of it. Instead, he and UFC wanted to swim upstream, against the tide, and promote him as a babyface.
His PPV numbers fell from being a consistent 450,000 to 700,000 buy fighter, he did just over 300,000 buys against Alexander Gustafson in his last fight. It was also the greatest fight in UFC light heavyweight division history.
After being beaten up for the first time in his life, Jones was to face Glover Teixeira, a hard puncher with 20 wins in a row. The smart money was not on Teixeira. The smart money would be to never bet against Jones until he gets old or a new phenom arrives. But there were questions about Jones mental ability and desire to fight when he was rich, and had been beating people up at will, only losing two rounds his entire career, one with Stephan Bonner which he got tired early in his career, a second round to Lyoto Machida, but in neither round did he take anything close to serious damage.
Whether it was because they were in Baltimore, where his brother, Arthur, used to be a standout on the Ravens, or the sellout crowd of 13,485 at the Baltimore Arena for the debut in the market saw him as the superstar of the show, he was a big favorite once again.
He also put forth a masterful performance that gave a lot of evidence to the idea hes the best fighter, regardless of size, in the sport.
Jones vs. Teixeira at UFC 172 drew a $2.3 million gate, the second largest gate for any event in the history of the Baltimore Arena.
Jones won the title, seemingly winning every round, to set up his return match with Alexander Gustafsson. If Daniel Cormier beats Dan Henderson, as is expected on 5/24, he would be expected to face the winner.
Brian Stann said after the win that he believes Jones is the greatest fighter in the history of the sport. His argument is that in his eight championship fight wins, he beat better people than Anderson Silva and GSP did during their longer streaks, and beat them more convincingly. You could argue that its too early to say hes the greatest ever, but he is unquestionably in the conversation. And if he beats Gustafsson and Cormier, depending on how those fights go, at that point it could be hard arguing against him.
Hes 20-1, but his loss was via disqualification in a fight that he destroyed opponent Matt Hamill in. He landed something like 50 unanswered elbows on the ground and kept asking the ref to stop it. Hamill was done. Eventually he started elbowing straight down, which is illegal, and was disqualified, but you could argue it was long after the fight should have been stopped. Even if the DQ call was fair, he has never physically been beaten in a fight. GSP has lost twice, and nearly lost a third time. Silva lost four times before he won the UFC title and went on his tear.
Silva was a fighter who showed promise, a skinny 167-pound fighter with an 8-1 record when he was Jones age. St-Pierre was 15-2, and the interim UFC welterweight champion, at the same age. Aldo was champion just as young, but Jones victims included five former champions, Rua, Rampage Jackson, Machida, Evans and Belfort, only losing one round total against the five.
For now, he and Ronda Rousey are the companys two biggest stars. While its too early get numbers Id call accurate, reports were that early DirecTV numbers for the fight were the biggest of the year. Most expected it to top the 340,000 buys of Rousey vs. Sara McMann, and it should have. People are still more willing to buy a mens fight than a womans fight, because of the idea they hit harder and its a higher level of athleticism. Teixeira has had far more exposure and looked significantly better in his fights than McMann, and this had a stronger undercard. Jones, with the exception of the Gustafsson fight, had never fallen below 415,000 buys previously, even in his fight with Belfort after the UFC 151 debacle when his popularity was at its low point.
The prelims on FS 1 did 750,000 viewers, just under the usual average (765,000) for pre-PPV prelims. The prefight show did 341,000 viewers and post-fight show did 189,000 viewers.
Coming on the heels of a show that came one shy of the record for most decisions, its possible UFC 172 set the record for spectacular finishes. It started with two incredible knockouts. Chris Beals flying knee over Patrick Williams is going to be in discussion for one of the best finishes of the year. Danny Castillos knockout over Charlie Brenneman would have won best knockout on 90 percent of UFC shows. And they had just gotten started. After the only lackluster fight of the night, Bethe Correias decision win over Jessamyn Duke, came Takanori Gomis fight of the night with Isaac Vallie-Flagg, Joseph Benavidezs submission win over Timothy Elliott in a battle of top flyweight contenders, and three more submissions in a row by Max Holloway, Jim Miller and Luke Rockhold.
Perhaps the story of the night was the return of Anthony Johnson, who as the worlds largest welterweight, had an up and down career. Now a light heavyweight, Phil Davis, a former NCAA champion, had no answer for him. Davis simply could not physically do a thing with Johnson. His takedowns were stuffed. He was thrown off clinches. Johnson patiently took Davis apart, who all week had been talking about wanting Jones.
In the end, the bonus decisions had to be among the toughest. Gomi vs. Vallie-Flagg was in most peoples eyes the best fight, and each got $50,000 bonuses. Beal, for his knockout, and Benavidez, for his submission, got best performance bonuses of $50,000. Dana White said there would be more good-sized bonus checks, given that Holloway and Miller would have won bonuses most nights, and Rockhold and Castillo on almost any other show but this.
UFC held a press conference on 4/29 in Mexico City to announce UFC 180 at Arena Ciudad, headlined by Cain Velasquez vs. Fabricio Werdum for the heavyweight title. As expected, the two will coach the debut of The Ultimate Fighter Latin America, which is geared in Mexico for Televisa Ch. 5, which is one of the countrys strongest channels. They are in talks with other broadcast networks in other Latin American countries but no deals have been confirmed. The filming begins on 5/12 in Las Vegas, and will continue through the last week of June. The show will debut the week of 8/18 and continue weekly until right before the live event. TUF Latin America will have 135 and 145 fighters, all from Latin American countries in a Spanish language show. Right now nothing has been announced regarding it airing in the U.S., but it would make sense to air of Fox Deportes or a Spanish language station. It wont air on FS 1 because they will be airing the Gilbert Melendez/Anthony Pettis season with the womens strawweight tournament, which will film in July and early August. Werdum will be going for a unique triple, as being the only guy to beat (and perhaps even submit) the three best heavyweights in the history of the sport, Fedor Emelianenko, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Velasquez.
The disclosed pay for last weeks 4/19 show in Orlando on FOX: Werdum ($175,000); Travis Browne ($50,000); Miesha Tate ($56,000); Liz Carmouche ($17,000); Donald Cerrone ($164,000); Edson Barboza ($29,000); Yoel Romero ($50,000); Brad Tavares ($19,000); Khabib Nurmagomedov ($64,000); Rafael dos Anjos ($21,000); Thiago Alves ($128,000); Seth Baczynski ($70,000); Jorge Masvidal ($78,000); Pat Healy ($25,000); Alex White ($66,000); Estevan Payan ($10,000); Caio Magalhaes ($24,000); Luke Zachrich ($8,000); Jordan Mein ($36,000); Hernani Perpetuo ($8,000); Dustin Ortiz ($20,000); Ray Borg ($8,000); Mirsad Bektic ($16,000); Chas Skelly ($8,000); Derrick Lewis ($16,000) and Jack May ($8,000).
Cain Velasquez has made it clear that he is not going to rush back too soon after surgery in December to repair a torn labrum. He feels he went into the first Junior Dos Santos fight at less than 100 percent and it cost him dearly, losing the title and I dont think as far as a drawing card and Hispanic hero, that he ever came close to recovering from it at the cultural level.
The Dan Henderson vs. Daniel Cormier fight is now official for 5/24 in Las Vegas. Henderson had to be cleared before they could finalize the fight that had been expected. The two guys waiting in the wings for Cormier if Henderson wasnt cleared, Rafael Feijao Cavalcante and Ryan Bader, will face each other on 6/14 in Vancouver.
Cormier has said that if he beats Henderson, he wants to wait until after the Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson fight and face the winner as opposed to doing one more match and risking the potential title match.
The scheduled August PPV date is 8/2. Right now, the leading main event candidate for that one is Jose Aldo Jr. vs. Chad Mendes for the featherweight title. Boy is this going to be the worst nine months on PPV in post 2006 UFC history, not as far as actual show quality, but in terms of PPV interest.
Except for 7/5, it doesnt look like any PPV in the foreseeable future (after this past Saturdays show which should do at least better than 350,000 with Jon Jones against a genuine contender, although I know a lot of knowledgeable people that dont think itll even hit that mark) is cracking the 250,000 mark.
Apparently Paul Heyman, of all people, helped save the TUF Brazil season with Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva. Silva had a period of time, right after the fight, where he refused to have any interaction with Sonnen. Sonnen, in trying to figure out what to do, contacted Heyman for advice. The two werent friends or anything, but for whatever reason, Sonnen thought Heyman could help him out in the situation. Im not exactly sure what happened past the point that Sonnen said that Heyman ended up saving the show.
