Almost every fight you mentioned as a good win has a huge asterisk beside it
I disagree that Jon beats Saturday’s version of Francis or any version of Francis, Jon probably gets KOed and he knows it. He was very selective with who he fought at HW and when he chose to move up. He said he was moving up in 2013, and then never did until right when Francis left UFC.
He’s definitely worried about getting knocked out
I would be too.
Francis is huge and Jon has to be quick enough to avoid them. He is slower at heavyweight.
But I still think he wins
Asterisk for what? Steroid use? You obviously aren’t going to give Jones credit for any win - the hate boner many have for Jones is strange - I’m easily able to separate what he does outside the cage compared to what he has accomplished inside.. the guy is an amazing fighter and for folks to deny this is so weird to me.
For me the asterisk isn’t steroids but just when he fought certain guys. Rampage was not the same guy. Vitor was old and coming off wins over rumble and Akiyama lol. Chael was a 185er. Fought OSP (what?) and fought Anthony Smith, Santos and Reyes all in succession. Weird and lackluster performance against smith, santos nearly beat him, Reyes arguably won. Clearly he was bored. But here’s what Anderson did when he fought guys below his level.
-made Forrest griffin look like a guy in his first day of sparring
-sniped James Irvin in a minute
-absolutely decimated Bonnar and Okami and made them look like regional fighters
-landed 100 percent of his strikes against Leben
Sure he had a couple of boring fights too. But jones fought to the level of his opponent. If they were really good he fought at a higher level. If they weren’t as good then he looked shitty. Weird juxtaposition.
It also didn’t help that his style was more nullification of his opponents strengths then chop away at the tree, later in his career he just nullified and did only what needed to be done instead of trying to dominate. His wins over Gus x2 and Cormier x2 are probably his best, and to me his win over Machida was most impressive because nobody had machida figured out that quickly.
Each fight he was fouling or PED ing or got a gift decision, Gane only clean win.
Wouldn’t fight Sonnen short notice and 151 was cancelled, ducked sonnen lol
Yeah, guys best standup ability was keeping arm extended with his fingers pointed straight out. The refs never called it though or penalized him so I guess it wasn’t on him.
”We could’ve fought. Nate knows that,” Poirier said. “I wish he would be honest with the fans and say that he pulled out or didn’t come to terms with the UFC or whatever it was for the couple times we were supposed to fight that it never happened.”
“But, dude, after the way he looked on Saturday night, he can’t talk right now man,” Poirier continued. “You need to take a break. He needs to go get some sleep and some rest. He looked like dog shit. He looked horrible. He looked like he didn’t want to be in there, looked like a punching bag. He looked off balance. His timing was horrible. When somebody loses, I don’t like to shit on them too hard, but he knows.”
Diaz actually mentioned Poirier during his post-fight interview after losing to Perry, joking about Poirier’s retirement from MMA — and apparently that struck a nerve.
”It’s crazy that he’s bringing me up in a post-fight,” Poirier said. “Apparently, he still wants the fight or is thinking about it. It’s just like, after a performance like that, it’s like I’m picking on somebody now if I’m chasing Nate Diaz, the way he looked.”
“It’s like I’m picking on an easy fight, easy win,” Poirier added. “But, Nate Diaz, I will knock you clean out if we fight.”
Author of this article must not have watched much women’s MMA.
Poirier forgot to mention he’d be fighting a version of Nate that is 10 years beyond expiration.