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This weekend at UFC 285, Jon Jones picked up arguably the biggest win of his career by submitting Ciryl Gane to win the UFC heavyweight title.
After his win over Gane, many people were quick to crown Jon Jones as the promotion’s GOAT, but is this really the case? There is an argument for considering Jones to be the greatest, but there’s also a very fair argument to say that this isn’t the case at all.
Here are five reasons why Jon Jones is still not the UFC’s GOAT.
#5. Jon Jones didn’t beat the real UFC heavyweight champion, Francis Ngannou
After easily submitting Ciryl Gane at UFC 285, Jon Jones is officially the UFC’s new heavyweight champion. However, the fact remains that he shouldn’t be considered the undisputed champion, simply because he didn’t beat the previous titleholder.
As everyone knows, former heavyweight kingpin Francis Ngannou didn’t lose his title in the octagon. He wasn’t even stripped for a positive drug test or an injury. Instead, he chose to depart the UFC after failing to come to terms on a new contract.
'The Predator' even seemed to use his Twitter account to taunt Jones about this following his win at the weekend.
With that in mind, it’s almost hard to consider Jones a true double champion, let alone the outright GOAT over other candidates like Georges St-Pierre and Demetrious Johnson.
There have been numerous other double champions in UFC history, but only two of them prior to Jones didn’t beat the reigning champion for their second title.
Henry Cejudo and B.J. Penn instead overcame top contenders to claim their gold in the bantamweight and lightweight divisions – but that was because the previous titleholders were suspended.
Essentially, unless Ngannou returns to the UFC soon – and that doesn’t seem likely – there’ll always be an asterisk over Jones’ heavyweight title reign. That means he cannot be considered the GOAT.
#4. Jon Jones’ greatest accomplishment has been done before
Jon Jones accomplished some great things in the light heavyweight division during his two reigns as champion. However, it feels like the UFC are pushing his heavyweight title win as the feat that has made him the true GOAT.
Despite this, ‘Bones’ isn’t the first double champion in UFC history. He’s actually the eighth fighter to achieve this, with four of his predecessors holding two titles simultaneously.
Sure, it was hugely impressive to see Jones return from over three years on the shelf to dispatch Ciryl Gane in the way that he did. It was not only his first fight in a long time, but it was his first bout in a heavier weight class, too.
Even that had been done before, though.
2017 saw legendary former welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre return from nearly four years on the shelf to dethrone Michael Bisping to claim the UFC middleweight title in his first ever fight at 185 pounds.
Was Jones’ win over Gane more impressive than GSP’s win over Bisping? It’s debatable, but ‘The Count’ was at least the undisputed, lineal middleweight champion at the time – something that cannot be said for Gane.
Therefore, Jones has only equalled GSP’s accomplishment, not surpassed it. If he defends his heavyweight crown on multiple occasions, this might change. For now, though, he can’t be considered the outright GOAT.
#3. Jon Jones’ wins over Smith, Santos and Reyes were all questionable
One thing that seems to be being used to push Jon Jones’ claim as the GOAT is the fact that unlike other claimants like Georges St-Pierre, ‘Bones’ has never lost cleanly in the octagon.
Famously, his only defeat came via disqualification in his 2009 bout with Matt Hamill. Were it not for some incompetent refereeing, that fight would’ve ended in a win for Jones.
However, claiming that ‘Bones’ has always been perfect inside the octagon would simply not be true.
After he reclaimed the light heavyweight title by beating Alexander Gustafsson in late 2018, he defended his crown three times. All three of those defenses were shrouded in controversy.
His win over Anthony Smith was a dominant one, but the fourth round saw him land a clearly illegal knee to the head of ‘Lionheart’.
Smith lived up to his nickname and continued the fight, but would’ve been well within his rights to simply refuse. Had he done that, he’d have been declared champion via disqualification, and Jones would’ve had a genuine loss on his record.
His wins over Thiago Santos and Dominick Reyes, meanwhile, both came via razor-close decisions. The Santos bout actually saw one judge give the nod to ‘Marreta’, while most online observers scored the Reyes fight in favor of the challenger.
With different judges, both fights could’ve seen Jones lose a decision.
Sure, the same could be said for St-Pierre’s controversial win over Johny Hendricks in 2013. But again, at best, it can be argued that Jones has equalled the Canadian’s accomplishments, not surpassed them.
Therefore, he’s one claimant to being the GOAT, and definitely doesn’t stand alone.
#2. Jon Jones has not acted like a true champion outside of the octagon
Nobody would ever try to claim that the UFC’s fighters should be considered role models outside the octagon. However, the fact is that MMA is a branch of martial arts. In martial arts, particularly traditional ones, respect and professional out-of-competition behaviour are important.
In that sense, it’d be hard to claim that Jon Jones has ever behaved in a way that a champion should do outside of the octagon.
While the accusations of dirty fighting thrown at him by his opponents can be largely overlooked, it’s fair to say that he’s been embroiled in controversy on-and-off for the best part of a decade now.
Ignoring his issues with banned substances, which will be covered later, Jones has also been involved in some of the most unsavory out-of-competition incidents in UFC history.
2015 saw him involved in a shocking hit-and-run incident that saw a pregnant woman injured, and ‘Bones’ narrowly avoided a felony charge on his criminal record.
2021, meanwhile, saw him embroiled in a domestic violence incident. While this charge was eventually dropped, he did plead no contest to tampering with a police vehicle after headbutting it during his arrest.
Other incidents involving Jones over the years have included two charges of driving under the influence, and a battery charge that he ended up pleading no contest to.
Sure, none of these incidents – save for the hit-and-run, which saw him stripped of his light heavyweight title and suspended – affected his career in the octagon, but that isn’t the point.
Simply put, it’s hard to consider a fighter who has been embroiled in so many unsavoury incidents as the GOAT.
#1. Jon Jones has tested positive for banned substances on multiple occasions
The biggest thing standing against Jon Jones’ claim to being the UFC’s GOAT is the fact that he’s failed no fewer than three drug tests during his career, with a controversial fourth incident also hanging over him.
The first failure was for cocaine. While it’s easy to brush that off as cocaine isn’t a performance enhancer, the same can’t be said for the others.
Prior to his scheduled bout with Daniel Cormier at UFC 200, Jones tested positive for two substances, clomiphene and letrozole, both of which are on the World Anti-Doping Agency's list of banned agents.
While ‘Bones’ claimed that he was the victim of a contaminated supplement, it didn’t stop him being banned for a year.
Upon his return, he defeated Cormier in their long-awaited bout, only to test positive for the anabolic steroid turanibol, resulting in the fight being declared a no contest. For this positive test, Jones was banned for 15 months.
More controversy occurred when he returned again in 2018, when the Nevada State Athletic Commission were unable to license him for a clash with Alexander Gustafsson for what were described as “inconsistencies” in his pre-fight drug tests.
While this was put down to a trace of turanibol remaining in his system from his previous use, it was still a huge red flag and resulted in the UFC moving their entire event to California so he could be licensed.
While Jones has always denied wrongdoing, it’s hard to really look past all of these incidents involving banned substances – especially when the likes of Georges St-Pierre, Henry Cejudo and Demetrious Johnson never tested positive once.
Therefore, with this considered, it’s hard to really look at Jones as the GOAT of the UFC.
