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This weekend, Jon Jones will defend his UFC Light-Heavyweight title against top challenger Dominick Reyes, and with a victory, ‘Bones’ will have completed his 11th successful title defense.
Essentially – ignoring the periods that he spent on the sidelines, suspended from action – the New York native has ruled the Light-Heavyweight division with an iron fist for the best part of a decade.
Part of Jones’ success has always come from his ability to do the unexpected inside the Octagon – to surprise his foes with a gameplan that they could never have seen coming, or catch them off guard with a rare move or technique.
Here are 4 times Jon Jones did the unexpected inside the Octagon.
#1 His head kick against Daniel Cormier – UFC 214
UFC 182 saw Jon Jones defend his Light-Heavyweight title against his toughest opponent yet, Olympic wrestler Daniel Cormier, but the champion was able to overcome his challenger by outworking him inside the clinch and even outwrestling him, taking him down on more than one occasion.
But two and a half years later, the two men fought again, and this time it was Cormier who held the title after Jones had been stripped for positive PED tests.
Early in the fight it appeared that Cormier had drilled everything that went wrong for him in the first fight; he appeared to be quicker and stronger than he’d been in the first fight, and he landed some of the best shots that any opponent had ever landed on Jones.
However, while he couldn’t succeed in the same way he did in the first fight, the champion had a secret weapon up his sleeve.
The third round saw Cormier struggling to get inside Jones’ reach, and as he began to charge forward a little too wildly, Jones caught him with a move we’d never seen him use before – a Mirko Cro Cop-esque left head kick.
‘DC’ managed to stay on his feet, but Jones quickly put him down and finished him off seconds later. ‘Bones’ had always used kicks to his advantage in the past, but never to this extent, and never to this result.
#2 Using his wrestling to beat Chael Sonnen – UFC 159
When the UFC matched Jon Jones against Chael Sonnen at UFC 159, most fans saw the matchmaking as exactly what it was: ‘The American Gangster’ had essentially talked his way into an undeserved title shot in a higher weight class, and the likelihood was that ‘Bones’ would comfortably dispatch of him as he had done his previous opponents.
The question wasn’t even how he would do it; the obvious gameplan for Jones seemed to be a simple one – just avoid Sonnen’s excellent takedown skills and beat him up on the feet, where ‘The American Gangster’ had never been the strongest fighter. It seemed like the best path for ‘Bones’, particularly as no fighter had ever been able to take him down up to that point.
Jones turned that idea on its head, though, by surprising everyone and shooting for a takedown of his own in the fight’s opening seconds.
Sonnen was taken by surprise and easily planted on his back, and while he got up initially, Jones was able to hit more takedowns in the opening round before eventually finishing the challenger with some savage ground-and-pound – basically using Sonnen’s own strengths to put him away.
#3 Starting his fight with Shogun Rua with a flying knee – UFC 128
When Jon Jones fought Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua for the UFC Light-Heavyweight title back in 2011, most fans would’ve forgiven the challenger if he felt nervous. After all, he was just 23 years old, had only been fighting professionally for 3 years, and was up against the consensus greatest 205lbs fighter in the history of the sport.
Somehow though, completely confident in his skills clearly, ‘Bones’ decided not to worry about all of that, and began the fight by throwing a low-percentage technique; a flying knee directly at the Brazilian champion. The knee did not knock the champion out, but it definitely stunned him, and threw him off his gameplan to the point where he was easy picking for Jones.
Less than 15 minutes later, Shogun, a veteran of 23 fights against the likes of Chuck Liddell, Rampage Jackson and Alistair Overeem, was left in a heap on the Octagon floor, a completely beaten man, and ‘Bones’ had claimed the title as his own.
Nobody had ever won a UFC title in such dominant of a manner, and fewer still would’ve dared to throw a move like a flying knee in the opening seconds of their first ever title fight.
#4 His spinning elbow against Alexander Gustafsson – UFC 165
Coming into his Light-Heavyweight title fight with Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 165, Jones had been dominating the 205lbs division for 2 years, making a total of 5 successful defenses of his crown during that time.
Few observers were giving Sweden’s Gustafsson a chance in the fight, largely because ‘The Mauler’ was essentially unproven at the very elite level and hadn’t fought in nearly a year prior to the fight.
Those people were proven wrong, though, as Gustafsson took the fight to ‘Bones’ like nobody else ever had, and after outstriking him at points and even taking him down, it appeared that the Swedish fighter was ahead going into the fourth round.
That round again saw Gustafsson taking the fight to Jones, and just as it appeared that the champion was minutes away from losing his title, he pulled out something unexpected – and devastating.
Jones uncorked a spinning back elbow from nowhere, landing cleanly and stunning Gustafsson, leaving him badly hurt. The champion followed up with some more elbows from the clinch, wobbling the Swede’s legs further, and while he survived the round, the tide had essentially turned.
A bloodied Gustafsson came up short in the fifth round and when the judges’ scorecards were announced, Jones had retained his title once again.
For all intents and purposes, he was on the verge of losing his crown, before tearing victory from the jaws of defeat with one incredible spinning elbow, a truly unexpected attack.
