UFC 135: Jones vs. Rampage Thread

I seriously doubt anyone will have Jones' number for now, at Light Heavyweight at leased.

For someone to beat him, they need to be a super fast striker, and able to land inside leg kicks over and over on him. It's crazy how he dominated Rampage like that.

Since Jones won the title, I knew Rashad had the best shot at beating him in the LHW division. Rashad has the speed and the ability to put Jones on his back.

I don't see Hendo or Machida beating Jones. Probably wishful thinking on my part, but I truly believe Shogun on a good day can beat Jones.

Like it or not, you gotta give props to Mark Hunt.

This guy had no real sports background. He was discovered when he got into a bar brawl and impressed the bouncer so much he was invited to train at his gym. Trained a for a few years, had a pretty good record in K-1 and was invited for the 2001 K-1 World GP and WON.

He was doing these nutty fights in PRIDE while not even being promoted as an MMA fighter, but as a K-1 fighter to fight against PRIDE/DREAM fighters beat Cro Cop and Wanderlei back-to-back, and later on had a real bad losing streak to a bunch of big-name guys (Overeem, Fedor, Manhoef, Barnett and Mousasi).

He came in to the UFC as part of the PRIDE buyout and was offered by Dana to just get paid and terminate the contract, which he could have done and no one would have said anything. He wanted to FIGHT to earn his money, and he did. The loss to Sean McCorkle really made him look at himself and try to improve and take this seriously now that he's in the bigtime. Knocked out one of Lesnar's training partners and just beat Ben Rothwell, who has beaten real tough guys like Krzysztof Soszynski, Roy Nelson, Ricco Rodriguez and Gilbert Yvel.

Trash his "performance" last night all you want, but he won when everyone was expecting him to lose, and he hit Rothwell with huge shots, defended a lot of takedowns, got back up to his feet and won. Make fun of his 7-7 redord, but don't discredit the fighter himself. I already had a ton of respect for him from watching all of his K-1 and PRIDE fights, and now I think he's earned UFC's respect for being a fighter and making something out of nothing. I look forward to see what he can do next.

Not sure about "brutalized Fedor", but he did have him in a pretty nice armlock for a good little while.

Totally agree... and if we're talking "super-fights" I'd personally rather see Silva Vs Jones, than Silva Vs GSP.

I think it's unfair to say Rampage isn't/hasn't been relevant in years though... he's a former champion and was a consensus top-5 LHW - and hadn't been stopped (or close to being stopped) since being in the UFC. Some people were even predicting a Rampage win, so for Jones to beat him like that was very impressive, imo.

I say, so what? If Georges claims to be fighting for a legacy, move up in weight.

...nor to fight Henderson at LHW when many people thought he should. Unless fighters feel comfortable moving up or down in weight, I don't think they should be pressured into it - GSP will still have a great legacy if he keeps dominating at WW.

Hmmm... I don't agree - I certainly don't think moving down hurts a legacy(!). I mean, you have to counter the size and strength factors with possibly being drained or weaker at the lighter weight and your opponent having advantages in things like speed and agility. I think it's equally impressive - you can count the number of guys who have been able to do it at the top level pretty much on one hand...

I don't think moving down HURTS your legacy, I just think it's a bigger feat to go up and be successful, kind of like Couture.

I also believe that BJ could probably make 145 if he tried. BJ is one of the best fighters ever, in my opinion, it's just some people look at his 16-7-2 record and say "Oh he's had 25 fights and 7 pretty bad losses", but losses don't matter (to me) in the long run. Like I said, BJ could probably be a great featherweight, but he's gone up to 190lbs to fight Machida and looked good, gone to Middleweight and beaten Rodrigo Gracie and Renzo Gracie and has had some great fights at Welterweight against Hughes, GSP, and Fitch. I like a fighter who likes to expand his horizons, and fights no matter the weight. I know UFC will never let him do it, but I'm sure he'd move to middleweight again if a big fight was offered.

BJ is up there in my all-time list. The whole weight thing is really not that huge of a deal, but I think it plays a big part when you're talking about legacy. Just my opinion though.