Jones vs Ngannou :The Biggest concerns around Jon Jones

 Jones vs Ngannou: The Superfight

The 3 important points of concern for Jon Jones.

28th March, 2021. A day that Francis Ngannou, a poor kid from Cameroon who had to cross an ocean for a chance at a better life, to chase his dream, will never forget. He defeated the heavyweight GOAT Stipe Miocic in their rematch to earn his status as "Baddest Man On The Planet". Francis made his dream come true. He had a chance to do it much earlier and yet, failed against Stipe himself. That defeat or the loss in his next fight vs Lewis didn't deter Ngannou. He didn't come this far to stop after such a loss. 

He picked himself up, trained hard and honed his skills in the craft and has successfully vanquished a worthy foe in Miocic. The story of Ngannou is incredible, inspiring and could frankly be an awesome movie. Is UFC 260 the culmination of a wonderful story, or a start for something even more magnificent? That depends on Jon "Bones" Jones. MMA royalty, one of the greatest fighters ever, one of the most controversial fighters ever. Jon is, in every sense of the word, must watch TV.

Jon is finally moving up to heavyweight (hopefully, the fight still hasn't been confirmed yet) after teasing the move since 2013. He relinquished his belt, decided to bulk up (to around 250 pounds and counting) and apparently can't wait to match up with Francis. Of course, pay issues are holding back the fight (could be it's own article to be honest). 

However, lets assume for a second our prayers have been answered and the fight becomes official. There are still a lot of questions and doubts left to answer. Many of them surrounding the challenger, who many believe to be one of the greatest of all time. While that thought seems contradictory, there are real reasons why these questions exist. Let's see what are those questions and why....

Disclaimer : This isn't a Jon Jones hit piece. I can definitely see potential paths to victory for Jon. These are just questions I have after looking at his recent performances. This was written with an objective mind with an idea of looking at areas of interest that Jon may need to work on before his superfight against Francis Ngannou.

It's tough to go by MMA math and always judging by recent fights doesn't work( It didn't for Miocic vs Ngannou), however, you can get a general picture from analyzing their recent fights and as far as we can say before the cage is closed and the fight begins, the advantage so far lies with The Predator, Francis Ngannou.

To see why Ngannou is a safe bet, let's re-visit UFC 260

I didn't have very high hopes for Francis going into the fight, but boy, oh boy, did he prove me wrong. He proved millions of fans around the globe wrong. We didn't have a large sample space to go by before his rematch with Miocic. He had spent less than 2 minutes in the octagon in his last 3 fights combined. Hence, it was difficult to judge anything about his improvements and how good he really can be if forced to fight patient and smart. Many people saw similarities between his first run through the division before Miocic 1 and his current run and expected the rematch to be the same result. Yet, Francis proved that to be false. He showed a level of technical prowess, a side of his we have never seen before.

The Predator was patient, showed crisp striking, an excellent jab, even defending that patented single-leg takedown that Stipe used to dominate him in their first fight. This form of Francis wasn't the one who got into a wild swinging match with Rosenstruik, thrusting forward with his chin out, throwing haymaker after haymaker as he lunged into a helpless Rosenstruik to finish him off in just 20 seconds. 

This Francis was different. This Francis was special, flawless. He's grown leaps and bounds since then……

The Jones of recent times, unfortunately, shows a stark contrast to the Ngannou who defeated Miocic.

The only question is whether what we have seen recently from Jon is a momentary dip in performance or a sign of things to come.

Jon seems to have regressed in many aspects. That is exactly what his recent fights suggest. Unless we learn "Bony" somehow didn't even give his 40% in his hair-splitting decisions against Thiago Santos and Dominick Reyes and somehow  he suddenly turns into the Jon of the years gone by by the time he fights Francis. In which case, I believe Jon will easily beat Ngannou, irrespective of how well he did in his last fight.

However, the latter seems unlikely.

Let's look at the major aspects of the potential fight, what Jon needs to win and why Jon could be in big trouble

1. Striking

2. Wrestling

3. "Killer instinct"

Jon recently has lacked in all 3 major components and unless big improvements occur, this won't be as easy as many of Jon's fans hope for it to be.

  

Striking

Jon's striking has never been particularly great. It's good, however, not comparable to the truly great strikers like Silva, Holloway, McGregor, Adesanya, even Wonderboy.  It leads well into his actual bread and butter, wrestling à la Kamaru Usman and hence it works for him.

His MO has always been to out-volume his opponents, to use his reach and unpredictable style to throw opponents off, to thrive off the chaos he generates t find control and create openings for clinch and takedown situations, where his wrestling skills, long reach and size comes in more than handy.  However, his recent few fights have gone awfully off script and his striking hasn't led to meaningful wrestling offence, and that is a problem for Jon. As evidenced by Reyes, anyone who can push Jon back hard and out-volume him poses him massive troubles. That's exactly what Reyes did and he came the closest to beating Jon. 

Dom out-struck Jones 116-104 overall and 83-59 in the first 3 rounds (which many believe won Reyes the fight). A big margin that suggests throwing with high volume against Jon and not letting him get into tempo provides avenues to defeating Jones.

Jon doesn't have the power Ngannou has, and power is important in the heavyweight division ( just ask Derrick Lewis). It is also important for someone like Jon when his usual style of fighting doesn't work (eg. his fight vs Reyes). It's understandable, even for the most ardent of Jones fans, that his power wouldn't be comparable to Ngannou's. Even with the bulking, the advantage goes to Francis. 

His movement will also be impaired.  His weight gain, despite increasing power to some extent, will reduce his speed significantly. 20+ pounds of mass will slow him down no matter what. His speed was a big assist in his striking and his feet movement and even though that is a delicate balance, its important for Jon to ensure any gain in power isn't offset by a regression in his speed and movement.

Ngannou has also improved his stand up technique, clearly evidenced by his last fight, with his measured approach, beautiful feints that not only halted Stipe's offense but also set up his own offense, incredible body work, effective jab and well timed counters, like the check hook that left Miocic collapsing to the canvas. Ngannou has vastly reduced the skill gap on the stand-up, if it even exists right now.

To be brutally honest, Reyes and Santos are good fighters, but not among the best of the best, not in the level you would expect of someone who could trouble Jon freaking Jones. Jon struggling with them is surprising for someone of his stature. If Jon struggles with Reyes while striking and can't absolutely run over a Santos with no legs, he faces an uphill climb against Francis, who is a much, much bigger threat on the feet than either of those two.

It is more than reasonable to expect Francis to win the standing parts of the fight.

Wrestling

Jon has struggled recently in this aspect as well.

His wrestling offence just hasn't clicked. He couldn't get any wrestling advances going against Reyes. He only attempted one takedown against Santos. There were signs even in his underwhelming yet relatively dominant showing vs Anthony "Lionheart" Smith. However, this has flared up as a big issue with Jones, particularly against fighters who can prevent Jones from overwhelming with his volume striking and hence stop his wrestling advances for the most part like Reyes did. 

He was 0/4 on TDs for the first 3 rounds vs Reyes and 2/5 with a gassed Reyes at the last 7–8 minutes of the fight. Attempted 4 but couldn't land a single TD for the first 3 rounds vs Reyes. Only 86 seconds of control time. This spells big trouble for Jon vs Francis, a guy so massive in stature, in weight, who also seems to have massively improved his wrestling, particularly his TD defense.

Look at this….

Took his feet back, stretched them out, stabilizing his center of gravity, threw his huge weight on Stipe making him do all the work. He stuffed the takedown, then went on to rotate, gain top control of Miocic as he was getting up and get a few good strikes in that made Miocic think twice about going for that takedown again. That exact moment, was when everyone realized this fight was very, very different from the first one.

Just brilliant from Francis.

He easily defended the same single leg TD from Stipe that won the first fight for Miocic. Many people who didn't watch the first fight wouldn't be able to believe the fact that this exact single leg takedown that Francis just defended beautifully was what Stipe used to absolutely dominate Francis the first time, leading to 3x 50-44 scorecards.

Jon can't just walk through Francis with his wrestling. Going by their recent performances, it's going to be a rough battle for Jones. To be able to initiate his wrestling against someone as big, strong and now smart as Francis in his defense and octagon awareness is a tall order. Edge to Jones in wrestling but don't be surprised if Francis stops Jon's wrestling offence dead in its tracks.

Killer instinct

I know, I know, it sounds like a buzzword and yes, it can be misinterpreted as a concept. However, this idea is very much applicable to the situation Jon is in right now. Personally, I believe it is the ability to make the opportunities you get, in a fight, count. Jon has lacked exactly that in his recent fights.

Jones has lacked the "killer instinct" he had in the past. The guy who standing guillotine choked Lyoto Machida and just left him to drop to the ground almost lifeless as he simply walked away, not even turning around to take a look back at the destruction he left in his wake…… that Jon is long gone.

The Jon of today coasts to decisions. Even when he clearly doesn't need to.

He has Santos reeling on one partially working leg. Santos' left knee was absolutely destroyed. He tore his ACL, MCL, PCL and meniscus, along with a partial ligament tear on his right knee. The fact that he was even standing was an absolute miracle, let alone fighting for 4 more rounds. 

Yet, Jon couldn't capitalize on it. He let Santos stay in the fight and that proved to be costly. He rallied back, fought with heart and even won the fight in one judge's scorecard. The first time Jon ever let that happen to him. He had never lost even 1 scorecard before. Yet, he let Santos do it to him. Not just embarrassing, also incredibly absurd....

He also didn't pick up his pace until the first 3 rounds vs Reyes were done. That almost proved to be costly ( it should have in the eyes of many who believed Reyes had been robbed). His wrestling offence didn't work, he couldn't land a single takedown and he was simply being out-volumed by Reyes. He had no answer and if not for Reyes gassing out after 3 rounds, that fight could have gone south real fast for Jones.......

A fight with Francis can't be approached with this mentality. Against a monster like Francis, every second, every punch, kick, feint matters. When you fight a monster, every single moment matters.

High level MMA is already a game of inches. Against someone like Ngannou, the margin of error only decreases even further and you have to make your opportunities count. Jon recently hasn't made his opportunities count. And if he doesn't, Ngannou can certainly make his count....

Jones needs to regain his killer instinct. More than the striking, than the wrestling, it's that which is lacking. Fixing the latter can potentially lead to fixing the other two in and of itself.

Overall, many could look at Jon's distant past fights with the likes of Rampage, Machida, Shogun, Gustafsson and DC. They could think Francis stands no chance. They would be right if not for the fact that the Jon who fought and beat those legends and the Jon of today are different fighters, noticeably different even to the casual eye, and therein lies the problem.

Jon just hasn't been Jon lately.

Unless major unexpected changes come to fruition, the heavyweight dream going to be a long hill to climb for Jones.

The Reyes and Santos fights show that the Jon of today is beatable. Two guys who aren't as good as Ngannou have come pretty damn close to beating the "unbeatable" Jon Jones.....

Jon isn't invincible anymore. Francis isn't a one trick pony who can be disposed of by any high level fighter anymore. 

This fight is still a very close one, where no one can be faulted for picking either fighter. Francis is Francis, a behemoth among men and Jon is Jon, a legend of the game. However, many who pick Jon do so with a hope that he can address these 3 points of concern and if Jon and Francis eventually fight, there is no doubt that the fight will be decided by how well Jones can answer the questions around those 3 aspects of the fight.

Whether Jon succeeds, however, is something we will only learn in the future when the door of the cage closes and the fight begins.....

Until next time,

Karthik Sabareesh