Jon Jones hasn’t stepped into the Octagon since he nearly lost the light heavyweight title to Dominick Reyes on February 8, 2020, at UFC 247.
It was the second consecutive outing where the ostensibly undefeated superstar ran into a challenger that nearly knocked him from his throne, after Thiago Santos pushed him to a split decision win at UFC 239 the previous summer. It made many start to wonder if the seemingly invincible Jones was finally becoming, well, vincible?
Following his win over Reyes, Jones vacated the light heavyweight title and announced his intention to move to heavyweight, a divisional shift that had been pondered and projected for many years.
But months turned into years, and Jones didn’t return, despite frequently talking about coming back on Twitter. By the time he was genuinely ready to return, FrancisNgannou was on the outs with the promotion, leading to the champion from Cameroon parting ways with the UFC, and Jones being tabbed to face Ciryl Gane for the vacant heavyweight title this weekend in the UFC 285 main event.
It’s a fascinating matchup, and finally, Jon Jones’ highly anticipated return is in the offing, but a big part of what makes this such a must-see contest to close out Saturday’s Pay-Per-View are the questions that cannot be answered until “Bones” finally steps into the Octagon.
WAS HE UNDERWHELMED OR WAS HE STARTING TO SLIDE?
When asked about his closer battles with Santos and Reyes, Jones has essentially said it was difficult to get motivated to fight guys like that given that he’d spent much of his career fighting legends and had never been defeated.
It’s completely understandable and makes a great deal of sense: he’s the youngest champion in UFC history, won the title in March 2011, and fought a Murderer’s Row of competition that spans multiple eras inside the cage before facing Anthony Smith, Santos, and Reyes in his last three outings.
With all due respect to those gentlemen, I can see how you’re not so pumped about facing them or driven to train like a madman for those contests when you’ve been through tense rivalries with Rashad Evans, Chael Sonnen, Alexander Gustafsson, and Daniel Cormier.
But it’s also one of those things you can throw out there as an explanation for a couple subpar performances that no one will argue and can’t be invalidated until you return to action.
While it’s entirely plausible that Jones wasn’t too jazzed about facing that trio and probably wasn’t putting in a Rocky Iv style training camp ahead of those fights, there is the possibility that after more than a decade at the top and a number of miscues and challenges outside of the cage, the pack started catching up to Jon Jones.
We see it in every division with a dominant champion --eventually, the sizeable advantage they have over everyone else starts to shrink, and they end up either moving on or falling from their perch atop the division.
Jones says he was underwhelmed with those assignments, but what if this was just the pack starting to catch up to a longstanding champion?
WHAT DOES HE LOOK LIKE AT HEAVYWEIGHT?
Although everyone is curious to see what Jones looks like, physically, as a heavyweight inside the Octagon, the question pertains more to how he moves, how he handles himself, and the things he’s able to do once he’s in there now that he’s fighting in the UFC’s big boy divisions.
Jones is a tremendously skilled fighter and has an incredible Fight IQ, but the physical advantages and his body composition were also factors in his overall success at light heavyweight. Even if he wasn’t always the taller man in the cage, his knew how to use his size, his range, his considerable reach to their maximum, and those things often gave his opponents fits.
But how do those things translate to heavyweight, where the opponents are bigger and those familiar advantages aren’t nearly as great?
Jones stands 6-foot-4 and has an 84-inch reach.
The only person he fought at light heavyweight that had an 80-inch reach was Ovince Saint Preux.
Gane is the same height as Jones, maybe an inch taller, and while he has a shorter reach at 81 inches, that’s the smallest edge “Bones” will have had in his UFC career.
Maybe it doesn’t matter.
Maybe his Fight IQ is so vast that less demonstrative edge is enough for him to still dominate. But Saturday will be the first time that the guy that always looked so much longer and rangier and tougher to deal with than his opponents will look fairly similar to the guy standing across from him.
In fact, Jones might be the bigger man from a weight standpoint this weekend, as Gane typically comes in around 245 pounds, with it all spread out evenly across his frame.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN HE GETS HIT?
This may sound like a silly question because Jones has been hit plenty of times in the past, but he’s never been hit by a heavyweight like Gane, and the big boys hit different.
That considerable reach advantages (and understanding how to utilize it to its fullest) has always helped Jones avoid taking too many clean, flush shots. We’ve seen him busted up a little in the first Alexander Gustafsson fight and deal with a few instances of bruising and swelling at other times, but he’s only been out-struck once (against Reyes) and he’s never been knocked down.
But he’s never been hit by a fighter like Gane, who is bouncy and athletic while brandishing a diverse striking arsenal, proven power, and a keen understanding of how to dispatch opponents when he has them hurt.
He won the interim heavyweight title by putting down Derrick Lewis, and then rebounded from his lone career setback (by decision to Ngannou in January 2022) with a third-round stoppage win over Tai Tuivasa. Eight of his 11 career victories have come inside the distance, with three submissions and five striking finishes, giving him plenty of ways to get Jones out of there if the opportunity presents itself.
And as much as people will say, “He’s been getting hit by heavyweights in training for years,” no training partner has been trying to give him an express ticket to the Shadow Realm the way Gane will be this weekend. Additionally, none of the people he’s been working with in advance of this fight have the blend of techniques and athleticism that Jones will have to contend with on Saturday.
WHAT HAS CHANGED AFTER THREE YEARS?
Three years is a long time, especially in the career of a fighter.
Jones’ last fight came two weeks after the promotional debut of current light heavyweight champion Jamahal Hill, who has logged seven additional appearances during Jones’ hiatus. He’s also 35 years old now, having dealt with more challenges and drama in his personal life while transforming into his heavyweight form, and all of that stuff can certainly take a toll.
And then there are questions of drive and motivation.
It will be 1,121 days between Jones’ last appearance and Saturday’s heavyweight title fight, and for much of that time, “Bones” didn’t seem particularly fussed about getting back to fighting.
Now, some of that was because he was at odds with the promotion over money and matchups, but one could argue that if he was champing at the bit to compete, those things wouldn’t have been major hurdles.
But signing on to compete and saying all the right things on the way to the Octagon is one thing; getting in there and showing that you’re back to being focused, driven, and ready to go through hell in order to defeat someone like Gane and further your legacy is something entirely different.
What happens when he gets in there and Gane buries a kick into his midsection? Will he bite down on his gum shield and look to fire back or will he think about the last three years of not taking a baseball bat to the ribs from a dangerous Frenchman and decide, “Yeah, I don’t really want to do this anymore”?
A FASCINATING FIGHT
All of these questions need to be ask and are a big reason why this is such a fascinating fight.
Jones is arguably the greatest fighter in the history of the sport, and he’s returning in a new division, against a tremendously dangerous opponent, with all kinds of uncertainty swirling around him, and there is no way to know how any of it will be resolved until he actually makes the walk and steps back into the Octagon once again.
Which brings up one final question: is it Saturday yet?
