The Unbreakable Jon Bones Jones: The Prodigal Son Returns

Easily the most reported ongoing storyline in MMA is the self-destruction of Jon Jones. It's just so easy to write: a fighter so good that he could only be bested by his own demons. It is exactly the tale which boxing writers have been rewriting for years about Mike Tyson. A fan favorite is Jones' ongoing issues with recreational drug use. This included a seemingly insincere 24 hours in rehab. Combined with his love of driving while under the influence these have unsurprisingly resulted in his having multiple run ins with the law. The drug drama was multi-faceted as many criticized the choice to test Jones for, and publicize his use of, a recreational drug while out of competition. And then there was the fact that his testosterone and epitestosterone levels were pretty suspicious. And the argument with the cop over drag racing that wasn't. Whatever Jones touches turns into pure, divisive drama it seems.

As Daniel Cormier was forced to pull out of their hotly anticipated rematch for the UFC light heavyweight title—a belt which Cormier holds but which Jones never lost—we instead find ourselves with last minute replacement, Ovince St. Preux. Understandably people are disappointed but the bout can still be interesting in a couple of ways. Most importantly, Jones doesn't like taking short notice opponents. We know this from when he wisely exercised his right to turn down a last minute opponent switch as Dan Henderson pulled out of their scheduled bout. Jones was willing to force the cancellation of UFC 151 to specifically prepare for an opponent, even when that opponent was as limited and undersized at light heavyweight as Chael Sonnen.

Just as interesting is that St. Preux has been significantly underestimated by UFC brass in the past and is already being written off in this fight. When he was brought in as an okay light heavyweight for Mauricio Rua to beat or at least elevate in a decent fight in front of a Brazilian crowd, St. Preux decked the old timer in seconds with just a partial punch.

What's more, Jones has spent a significant time away from the game and ring rust manifests itself differently for different fighters, and Jones has not competed under the new USADA testing nor the new IV free rehydration rules. That is not to point fingers at Jones himself, it is just to observe that both of those changes have coincided with declines in a few major fighters' abilities in the cage.

Aside from the discomfort of Jones not having prepared opponent specific the match up offers the intrigue that St. Preux is a southpaw. Jones has fought a couple of them but they were the undersized Lyoto Machida and Vitor Belfort and the almost pure wrestler, Chael Sonnen. As Jones' favorite one-size-fits-all range keeper is either the right leg oblique kick from an orthodox stance, or the right leg low line side kick from a southpaw stance, it will be interesting to see if Jones is anywhere near as good jamming the advances with his left. He did so decently against Vitor Belfort, but Belfort seemed exhausted almost immediately and simply sat on the end of Jones' reach.

On reach, St. Preux's is eighty inches and he stands six foot three. He has the build of a world beating light heavyweight even if he doesn't have the technical finesse yet. As limited as his striking is, lacking combinations and dropping his right hand every time he throws his left, St. Preux still has that weirdness as a southpaw with a powerful left hand. The left straight sneaks through against most of his opponents, and he throws up left kicks well—though his fondness for body kicks can lead him to give away easy takedowns as he did against Glover Teixeira and Patrick Cummins.

On the negative side of the ledger, there are all St. Preux's habits. He doesn't set up his left hands or kicks but relies on them simply being fast and unusual. He eats counter left hands because he always drops his right when he's throwing his left and doesn't move his head much to compensate. He can stuff a takedown pretty well in a pure wrestling exchange, but he also backs himself onto the fence routinely and gets stuck there for lengthy periods.

Even in his most famous knockout over the aforementioned Rua, St. Preux was almost running himself onto the fence again. Against Ryan Jimmo—a fighter who would be a hundred times more appreciated if he initiated wall clinches half as often—OSP had continued trouble along the fence and the same was true against Glover Teixeira. St. Preux also tends to stand tall and upright along the fence while wrestling rather than spreading his base, making him perfect for Jones who has little interest reaching down to get his man's hips most of the time. Jones likes to fight with his head underneath his opponent's—standing them up and exposing their head to elbows and their body to punches. This was how Jones butchered Glover Teixeira and how he has set up the flashy spinning elbow through the years. Jones also puts on his best kickboxing flurries along the fence—it's where he put the hurting blows on Rua, Belfort and Rashad Evans.

A quick quote from my Teixeira pre-fight last week because I'm not about to rewrite all the reasons Jones' work against Teixeira was amazing:

In terms of ideal gameplans, Jones should be looking to show the difference between a top quality athlete and the ring general he has become. On a physical level he and St. Preux have similar gifts. It is what Jones has learned through his years wrestling, through his commitment to improving his striking, his newly developed inside work on the fence, and his understanding of ring generalship that makes him the best fighter in the world. Batter the lead leg, throw in the long straight kicks to the body, avoid the round kicks just to minimize the danger of OSP stepping inside with the left hand. When OSP moves too near the cage, Jones should get in, free the hands, and let fly with the elbows and the body blows. St. Preux impressed enormously with his ability to get up from underneath Cummins and for a while Teixeira, but he exerted so much energy doing it each time that it would be worth Jones just dumping him to make him fight back up a few times. Certainly it's hard to see St. Preux being able to explode up off of his back after taking a round or two of low kicks and body blows.

For St. Preux the ideal gameplan is simple, but plays to his strengths and the things that Jones should be concerned about. I would love to see St. Preux devote himself to planting his left hand straight on Jones' sternum. When Jones goes southpaw, wide lefts to the ribs. Remember how often Alexander Gustafsson had Jones reaching down or focusing on body jabs and imagine if that was a full fledged southpaw left straight.

Against Gustafsson, Jones resorted to trying to stiff arm the Swede away from his body. This over-reaction left Jones' head on a platter at several points in the bout.

After a few body straights have landed for OSP it would be time to go upstairs with a lightning left straight and look for the big connection, or duck in and do the Rocky Marciano look down overhand.

Rinse and repeat. The old Matt Serra low-high, exactly how Serra dethroned Georges St. Pierre. As an aside, head to head exchanges with Jones are not generally favourable because of his love of linear kicks—if he is given time to stay on the trigger. What Gustafsson did so masterfully, and what Cormier utterly failed to do as he plodded forward through kick after kick, was to move enough to dissuade Jones from throwing out a straight kick for fear of missing and giving up a dominant angle. A little movement from side to side before each step in to strike would significantly improve St. Preux's chances. Gustafsson didn't avoid the lead leg punishment and jamming of his advances through magic, after all.

If St. Preux wants to kick, he should probably limit himself to attacking the inside of whichever leg Jones is presenting as the lead—where Jones has run through men kicking him on the outer thigh, inner thigh shots have several times shown to take him out of his stance. If OSP is feeling very confident, he could try to use the inside low kicks to set up the uppercuts as Nieky Holzken did so masterfully last weekend. Read the breakdown of that fight because it was probably the best of the year so far.

Jon Jones winning seems a foregone conclusion to many, but imagine for a moment that he doesn't. St. Preux gets a title fight? Jones vs Gustafsson II? We rebook Jones vs Anthony Johnson? OSP gets Cormier? The whole thing could set back the Cormier—Jones rematch by a year or more. Hell, Cormier is already thirty-seven and has serious wear and tear on his body, he might not be in the game that much longer. Buster Douglas is overused as a parallel but St. Preux has been put in a fortuitous spot, at the best possible time he could meet Jones, and he's got the power and athletic ability to pull an upset if Jones assumes he is the better man and doesn't actually do the things that make him the better fighter.

Two More Questions

Most will be crossing their fingers and hoping that everything goes as expected so that we can continue following the Jon Jones storyline to the chapter marked 'Redemption' wherein he bests Cormier again. Yet two other key subplots are playing out this weekend as well. Benson Henderson's Bellator debut is the first. Henderson's departure from the UFC marked the most significant fighter leaving the UFC on his own terms since the days of PRIDE FC. On Friday Henderson meets Bellator's welterweight champion, Andrey Koreshkov and it will ask as many questions of the former UFC champion as it will of Koreshkov.

Henderson has two victories as a welterweight: the first over Brandon Thatch and the second over Jorge Masvidal who was himself coming up from lightweight at short notice to save the bout after Thiago Alves dropped out. In Thatch fight it was the experience and pace of Henderson meeting the conditioning and grappling shortcomings of Thatch. If Koreshkov can grapple anything like Thatch and work his dynamic striking on the outside, he can certainly make Henderson struggle. The Bellator champion's only loss was to Ben Askren, one of the absolute best wrestlers in MMA, so his chances look decent.

If Henderson smokes Koreshkov it will be great for his brand. He's got a lucrative deal and the right to sponsors—success would cement him as easily the best fighter a company can get its brand on. If he can appear on Spike TV regularly he could well work out better paid than the UFC champion. Seeing this will certainly influence the mindset of those in the UFC coming to the end of their contracts. But if Koreshkov pulls the upset convincingly, it could well hurt the easing of fighter attitudes to trying their hand as free agents. Best to stay in the big leagues than risk a loss to a perceived C-tier fighter. If Koreshkov wins or loses a close fight he, and by extension Bellator's other top fighters, look a lot more legitimate. It used to be that a fighter getting out of the UFC was on the way down and so anything done against them in other organizations had an asterisk next to it. But Henderson is there having just beaten Masvidal, Thatch and arguably Cerrone (who then went on to get a lightweight title shot).

The final major storyline leading into this weekend's events is that of Demetrious Johnson versus Henry Cejudo. Where guys like John Moraga, Ali Bagautinov and Kyoji Horiguchi were rushed into title shots against Mighty Mouse, Henry Cejudo has seemed to have had time to build himself up. An Olympic gold medalist, his wrestling is the kryptonite everyone wants to see Johnson tested against. Though his kicks are decent and he throws about half a dozen superman punches in every fight. The question is if Cejudo can't pull it off, are the UFC basically admitting defeat in this division? Johnson is incredible but can't pull in audiences and the shallowness of the division prevents any of its other standouts building any momentum or fan following before Johnson needs another title challenger to knock off. The announcement that the winner of The Ultimate Fighter will get a shot at Johnson's title just hammers home how desperate things are getting in that weight class. And what if Cejudo does win? Fans struggle to find interest in the little men because of the perception that they can't do damage in spite of Demetrious Johnson's decent finishing rate as a champion. Imagine how the fans would respond to Henry Cejudo as champion, a man who has won his last six fights by decision and never finished a notable fighter. Certainly the UFC's flyweight experiment's findings are in and for those like me who love the division, they're a pretty upsetting elephant in the room.

Enjoy the fights, get back here Monday for the breakdowns, and enjoy a bit of 'Road Not Taken' hypothesizing when the hurly burly is done.