I respect Jon Jones, the talented athlete, and extraordinary fighter but I have a hard time liking Jon Jones the personality. His apparent lack of humility rubs people the wrong way. Jones will tell you he’s not cocky, just extremely confident. The fine line between the two, however, makes it difficult to tell if Jones’ self-critique is fact or fiction. As a result, he gets little benefit of any doubt when he voices his opinion.
The way Jon Jones conducts his business outside of the cage mirrors the tumultuous landscape of Boxing such as declining to fight Chael Sonnen on short notice, which caused the UFC’s first event cancellation.
So of course, there is some backlash when Jones stated at a UFC Q & A session that Chris Weidman isn’t superlight worthy when a fan asked about such a bout. The thing is, Jones is absolutely right.
Weidman is coming off two highly publicized wins over Anderson Silva but through no fault of his own, we still don’t know if he is the best middleweight in the world. He needs to rack up some quality wins with no shenanigans to become a legitimate part of the super-fight discussion.
Jones did say “I think Cain Velasquez is the only guy that would actually be considered a super fight.” For the sake of the sport, I hope this fight materializes. MMA is plagued with super fights that either never happened or occurred when both fighters were past their prime.
They say better late than never but I say thumbs down when mega fights always come home after curfew. Chuck Liddell vs. Wanderlei Silva should have happened when they ruled UFC and PRIDE with an iron fist, and not both were coming off two consecutive losses.
Cain Velasquez awaits the winner of Travis Browne vs. Fabricio Werdum while Jon Jones has a tough task ahead of him in Glover Teixeria. If the stars align, maybe, Jones vs. Velasquez will be the fight that didn’t get away.
Fingers crossed!
Ringside Logic 