Jon Jones has continued to defy the odds in never being defeated via decision, knockout, or submission throughout his illustrious UFC career. What’s particularly remarkable is how Jones has never been knocked down let alone knocked out. One of Jon Jones’s light heavyweight champion predecessors, Forrest Griffin, believes that it is only a matter of time before Jones does fall: (Transcript via The Body Lock):
“I think he’s been fighting a lot this year,” Griffin told Helen Yee of Eyes on the Game recently. “He looked like a guy who had three fights in six months, seven months. It was a decent performance. Thiago Santos is a guy who can take your belt from you with one punch. So he had to fight him in a safe manner. It wasn’t necessarily the most exciting fight but he got the job done.
“The last two guys that Jones faced, he obviously had respect for power in their hands,” Griffin continued. “If Thiago throws a spinning heel kick, there’s your belt.
“It’s going to take an anomaly, almost like what happened with GSP. In the sport of MMA, sometimes you just get caught and sooner or later, he’ll get caught.”
In sum, Griffin believes the main ingredient to defeating Jon Jones is to show less respect than his recent opponents have shown the light heavyweight champion. In Thiago Santos’s defense, the respect shown and the lack of a spinning heel kick is likely due to the fact that he was fighting with a battery of injuries on both of his legs.
Do you agree with Forrest Griffin? Will Jon Jones get caught and knocked out sooner or later?
