YNWA14
Onbreekbaar
- Dec 29, 2010
- 34,543
- 2,560
So again I think this requires context. Yes, Rampage and Belfort were clearly not at the top of their game IMO, especially Rampage who looked like he just didn't care anymore (prime Rampage never loses to Forrest or Rashad IMO, but he probably still loses to Jones).Let's assume that Rampage and Belfort were past their prime, even though that was probably the best version of Belfort that Jones fought (TRT Belfort). Do these records look like past their prime to you?
Evans -->17-2-1
Machida -->17-2-0
Shogun --> 19-4-0
Teixeria --> 22-2-0
Gustafsson -->15-1-0 (18-5-0 second time)
Cormier --> 15-0-0 (19-1-0 second time)
And that's not all of them, but you get the point. The same crap can be done with Khabib's record.
I should also say that in this sport fighters go through phases, and because Jones has been defending the title longer, he has always fought those guys at a high point in their career regardless of where they were timeline wise.
Machida had lost 2 of his last 3 fights when he fought Jones (including a brutal KO, and a past it Rampage), and his win to get him back there was a KO over a 75 year old Randy Couture (beautiful kick though). Shogun had lost to Griffin and Machida (though he was impressive in getting that one back) and his only other two wins at that time were over Liddell and Coleman...I mean, a lot of people who have followed the sport for a long time thought Shogun was past it by the time he even fought Forrest (though that was hindsight when he lost). He never looked as good as he did in Pride in the UFC, though again...the sport evolves. Records don't tell a whole story (again, Jones could easily have multiple losses on his record by a lot of accounts).
Evans was never elite, I had already mentioned Gustafsson and Cormier, but Teixeira was another solid win. Again, I wasn't saying that Jones' record wasn't good or that he isn't an ATG, but it's overrated. His longevity is something that will obviously be commended and looked at in an ATG discussion but, of course, there are a lot of asterisks there. I also don't agree that just because someone gets a title shot means they're at a high point (as demonstrated above, I could bring a ton of examples of this but we all know that the title path/rankings are dubious at best). Khabib is more dominant, and became more dominant as time went on. Maybe there would be some faltering if he kept fighting maybe not...but he definitely deserves that P4P #1.