UFC 285 Beforemath: Will Jon Jones Become the Next Georges St. Pierre?

After three years away from the sport that brought him fame and controversy, Jon Jones returns after a long-teased move to heavyweight. He takes on what could be one of the worst matchups for him in former interim champion Ciryl Gane in the UFC 285 main event on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. This is one of the highest-profile return fights in Ultimate Fighting Championship history, and it’s bound to be a legacy-making exercise. If Jones wins, he becomes the undisputed GOAT and pound-for-pound No. 1. If Gane wins, he becomes the first man to legitimately defeat Jones.

KICKS ARE KEY

Gane has the abilities to beat Jones, and that makes this fight very intriguing. He brings a certain set of skills to the table that can prove problematic for any heavyweight and is quite literally the best striker the UFC heavyweight division has ever seen. In Gane’s lone loss, Francis Ngannou surprised him by turning to wrestling to retain the undisputed heavyweight title.

Against Jones, we have seen the low kick be a major key to success. We’ve seen Thiago Santos, Dominick Reyes and Alexander Gustafsson have success going to Jones’ legs. His small calf muscles of Jones have been a liability throughout his own career. Longtime UFC analyst Joe Rogan in 2011 made a comment in the Lyoto Machida fight that Jones had “comically small calf muscles.” Fast forward to the Santos fight in 2019, and Rogan makes the exact same comment. In 2011, the low calf kick wasn’t quite the weapon it is in modern MMA. Even since Jones’ last fight in 2020, calf kicks have become more common in fighters’ gameplans. Gane will want to bet, first and foremost, that Jones will not check leg kicks in a modern mixed martial arts contest. Kicking the leg will hamper Jones’ mobility and make achieving the takedown, a leg-intensive part of MMA, that much more difficult. I won’t be surprised at all if the first strike Gane throws at UFC 285 is a low calf kick.

In the fight with Machida, who has a style similar to Gane’s, we can see how “The Dragon” used his karate blitz to get in on the longer Jones and actually hurt him for the first time in his career. While this exchange isn't the one that hurt Jones, the angle better illustrates the technique used. (1) Machida is in southpaw, and Jones is standing in orthodox stance. Machida likes this stance and will look to land the roundhouse to the body. (2) When Machida throws the kick, Jones reaches down with his lead hand and drops his elbow to minimize the strike. Now in on Jones, who won't attack and can't kick as he wishes, Machida (3) follows up with a left that is almost a jab now due to the changing of stances from the roundhouse kick.

With that combination from Machida, Gane also would touch on another part of the fight that I think could benefit him at UFC 285. That left kick to the body is important, and if Gane finds it or any other offense to the body, like the push kick he's so fond of, it could wear Jones down. With all this new weight put on by Jones and the length of time he has taken off, I will be curious to see if his cardio—as a fighter who has shown signs of fatigue in the past but has been quite decent going the distance—is up to par at perhaps 50 pounds heavier. It really is a simple equation: Tire your opponent out faster than you get tired, and you can put yourself in a great position to win the fight.

We also know Jones is big with the kicks. In fact, it wasn't until recently that he has become a better boxer. Jones will kick his opponents and draw out an attack from them to initiate a clinch and get them to the mat, where he does his best work. Gane will have to know the counters to these kicks, which he likely does. I expect to see a lot of counter crosses and for Gane to be mounting an assault on Jones' legs in his own right. If you kick the kicker, you can nullify some of his offense.

Of course, there are the clinch situations. Jones thrives in the clinch. He drowns his opponents there with either brutal spinning back elbows or by taking them to the ground. For Gane, avoiding the clinch with sound footwork and smart punch selection will be the priority. However, he will find himself in the clinch. He will have to be strong and make Jones work for everything he tries to get, but he will also want to punish “Bones” when he is in this position and to deter any further clinching. If there’s anything we know about Jones it is that he can get drawn into a firefight by trying to prove he’s the better man in an area where the opponent is strongest.

Early in the fight with Ngannou, we saw some awesome creativity from Gane. He utilizes the Yair Rodriguez elbow from his fight with Chan Sung Jung. After Ngannou failed on his first takedown attempt, the two find themselves in the center of the cage. (1) Gane makes it a point to frame off Ngannou and keep his right hand, the eventual striking hand, free from the grip of “The Predator.” (2) Gane drops down low and, with the hand not corralled, is free to throw the (3) up elbow that lands but not quite enough. These types of strikes can lure Jones into that kickboxing-type fight and allow Gane to avoid the clinch. If Jones becomes hesitant to clinch and shoot due to being turned and battered with these types of elbows, Gane can take this fight home and bring another UFC championship to France.

A win over Jones will supersede anything Gane lost in the Ngannou fight. Jones has the higher profile, and becoming champion at his expense could mean that much more for Gane’s legacy.

WORK SMARTER, NOT HARDER

A triumphant Jones return would be a real threat to Alexander Volkanovski’s position atop the UFC’s pound-for-pound rankings. Remember that Jones was the top pound-for-pound fighter in the world before his three-year hiatus and move to heavyweight. Should he capture a second belt, he will be undoubtedly the best fighter in the world.

However, Gane is no easy fight for Jones. He has that striking pedigree that is beyond anything that has given Jones trouble in the past. Gustafsson had the size, Reyes had the hands and Santos has the kicks. Gane has all three. Jones will not want to play his usual “I’ll beat you at your own game” hand. Instead, he will want to defeat Gane by exposing the glaring hole in his skills: grappling. Jones will want to pull a Roy Jones Jr. and make a statement: “Y’all must’ve forgot!”

Two things we know about Jones are that he likes to kick, and he likes to switch stances a lot.

We mentioned the southpaw and orthodox stance earlier when discussing Gane. However, with Jones being such a switch hitter from both sides and the main focus of this analysis, it only makes sense to examine him. Above, we can see the feet of an orthodox-orthodox and southpaw-orthodox matchup. On the left, we see a bladed stance. Both fighters have their left leg forward, and the rear leg is the power hand and leg. For a southpaw, the power hand is switched to the left, and the right leads the dance. This puts the two fighters toe to toe and creates some opportunities for takedowns, outside foot advantages, and more.

With Jones switching stances so much, it provides a unique opportunity that surfaced in Gane’s fight with Tai Tuivasa. While Tuivasa was finished in that fight, there was a small moment where he switched stances and used the natural momentum of stance switching to land a low kick on Gane.

Knowing now what we know about southpaw and orthodox stances, take note at how Tuivasa utilized the switch to land low on Gane. (1) Tuivasa starts out in southpaw, and Gane is dialed into that range with his own southpaw stance. Tuivasa (2) steps through and into orthodox. Notice how Gane doesn’t step back into an orthodox stance of his own. Jones will likely not step in like this on Gane but will instead mask it with kicks to the leg, using the teep, oblique kick and roundhouse to naturally step through. Back to Tuivasa. He steps in and Gane isn’t backing out. He’s caught in between thoughts, and the swift stance switch from Tuivasa allows him to get a kick in and smash Gane’s legs. Notice also how Tuivasa frames off with his left hand as Gane throws a jab of his own. This defense will be even greater with Jones’ ridiculously long arms.

While these tricks are good and can help Jones against the tricky Gane, he needs to not roll the dice and get the odds in his favor. Jones should get to wrestling, hurt Gane in the clinch and win the fight with the skills that brought him to the dance.

We know Gane has a massive hole in his game when it comes to grappling. While he was exhausted in the latter rounds against Ngannou, he still was taken down pretty easily. Gane managed to avoid wrestlers like Curtis Blaydes and Alexander Romanov coming up, so when he was tested for the first real time against Ngannou, he crumbled under pressure. This will have Jones licking his chops to get his hands on Gane.

Daniel Cormier was the biggest takedown threat and defensive grappler Jones ever fought. In their first fight, (1) Jones managed to get in on a shot and press Cormier to the fence. Jones grabs Cormier’s collar, and the American Kickboxing Academy rep makes the mistake of not pummeling and grabbing the under hook to pull up an eventual shot from Jones. Of course, (2) Jones does shoot and gets his hands locked behind Cormier’s legs, right under his rear, to scoop and slam. Notice how Jones presses into Cormier’s hips, preventing the pummel with his shoulders. “DC” didn’t have the thought to go behind the legs and peel Jones off while he was in the heat of the moment. (3) Jones will scoop up Cormier and (4) slam him on to the mat.

Lastly, with the threat of the takedown established, Jones can add a layer to the game by using those brutal elbows with which he’s so effective. By having Gane think “takedown” when clinched against the fence, Jones will be open to land these elbows easier. This is a form of misdirection, and Jones is masterful at it.

Going all the way back to the start of his reign, Jones would have a magnificent display of the use of the spinning back elbow against Mauricio Rua. After grappling “Shogun” to death for two rounds, (1) Jones pressed him against the fence. Rua grabs at Jones’ wrist. Unlike Gane’s elbow from earlier, Jones doesn’t mind the hand being controlled. He is planning to strike with the other elbow and come around the side. (2) He will pull Rua’s hand down with his right, which creates a lane for the spinning back elbow. With Rua’s left hand down, Jones spins the body with full torque and (3) lands the brutal spinning back elbow.

Threatening the take down will have Gane thinking about his takedown defense instead of the oncoming strikes, like Jones had “Shogun” thinking. I look for Jones to land more of these later in the fight and start to pour the damage on late should the fight go on that long.

All in all, this fight should be a win for Jones. His skills are just he needs to beat Gane. However, with the three-year layoff and the new added weight, Jones might struggle a bit in his return. He hasn’t looked great in his last fights, and many think Jones could be falling behind. One such fighter returned after a lengthy time off and captured a belt in the weight class above: Georges St. Pierre.

It was well known that St. Pierre never quite left the gym and trained in his four years between the Johny Hendricks and Michael Bisping fights. Jones has posted himself working out during his layoff, but it has to be genuine and sincere. He has been known to not train for fights. Gustafsson and Cormier were fights Jones had famously said he did off the couch and “after a weekend of cocaine and hookers.” If Jones hasn’t taken his return seriously, he will lose. Gane is too good and too much of a specialist in his weak areas.

With that said, St. Pierre dared to be great, and so does Jones. The price of winning puts Jones back at the top of a pile. A loss will leave him in the same category as Israel Adesanya—great, but not great enough to capture an elusive second championship in a weight class above. Jones’ entire legacy is at stake at UFC 285.