yamikazo
Trakanon Raider
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Well, I can stop you right there. Jon Jones, love him or hate him wasn't even really considered being a great wrestler collegiatelly (however it's spelled) or anything. Yet he manhandles a guy that was an Olympic wrestler in Cormier. A guy that has done the same against much larger competition (Josh Barnett). These guys totally need to evolve themselves. Granted Cormier has some pretty good stand up and he has won several fights that way, but at the end of the day when a guy comes along in any weight division like Jon Jones, what you gonna do? WHAT YOU GONNA DO?!? You must evolve in this game for guys like that. If you've been wrestling all your adult life, make it to the grand stage of Olympic wrestling, and get done the way Cormier has against Jones, you aren't going to find new angles to take him down and keep him there. You need a new approach.
I'm hoping the Style Bender (Israel Adesanya), who fights this weekend, can evolve into a guy that's more than just bad ass at stand up. I hope he gets good at wrestling too. That guy has great potential if he can learn new games like that. But if he doesn't, he's gonna just be another Edson Barboza. Looking real good til he gets to the top guys. And wrestling is a very hard thing to learn, much like striking. Jon Jones is kind of the guy to look at as far as having everything figured out the way that it is right now.
***In other news, the UFC is looking a deal with NBC and ESPN splitting their investment and having fighters who belong to each brand exclusively outside of 6 PPV's a year and new weight classes for men at 165 and women at 105 to add more matches throughout the year. I wish they'd add a 225 lb. division, but I guess there isn't a lot of competition there right now that is world class enough warrant that.
I don't see Bones providing a model for others to follow. He's an exceptional freakish athlete, not someone who teaches you how to beat a wrestler. Jon Jones is just so incredibly talented that DC has to adapt to the elephant in the room but no one else has replicated that elephant.
Women's 105 doesn't seem like a good idea to me. How many competitive fights are we missing out on because there are women who can't make 115? We're talking women shorter than 5'2 and they already have a depth problem in every women's division.
Men's 165 would be good. 125, 135, 145, 155, 165, 180. More title fights, more excitement, more opportunities for cross-over champ-champs, more top-ranked fighters to top cards with, and fewer fight cancellations mid-week because a guy can't cut are all good for business. For the sport there's a lot of guys who don't look good at 170 but can't make 155 so we get more talent. If legit weight cutting rules are established, this becomes all the more important.
Also GSP for the inaugural 165 belt! Old man can not worry about his weight and just crush.