MMA Pound-for-Pound Rankings: Jon Jones is again – does he should be No. 1 once more?

Welcome to the newest replace to the MMA Preventing pound-for-pound rankings, the place each month our esteemed panel type by means of the noise to reply one query: Who’re the perfect general female and male MMA fighters on the earth?

This time round, we’re solely wanting on the males’s facet as Dana White’s No. 1 man Jon Jones returned to the octagon at UFC 309 to efficiently defend his heavyweight title with a dominant win over Stipe Miocic. Let’s see the place that efficiency positioned Jones on our listing after he was briefly eliminated for inactivity.

Photograph by Sarah Stier/Getty Pictures

Jon Jones received what he needed at UFC 309. However that doesn’t imply he’s entitled to the No. 1 spot within the pound-for-pound rankings.

That’s a minimum of how the employees at MMA Preventing sees it, even after Jones ran by means of future Corridor of Fame inductee Stipe Miocic in Saturday’s primary occasion. Jones made the 42-year-old Miocic, a two-time UFC champion, look amateurish at instances, and he wrapped up his first protection of the heavyweight title with a unbelievable spin kick to the physique that proved to be the start of the tip.

It’s no secret that the build-up to the competition was rocky at finest, with Jones and Miocic initially booked to combat 12 months in the past. Jones suffered a pectoral damage and the bout was postponed, leaving each fighters on the sidelines whereas top-ranked heavyweight Tom Aspinall claimed an interim crown and established himself as Jones’ rightful No. 1 contender.

Whether or not Jones’ reluctance to combat Aspinall factored into how our panel voted this month is unclear, however one factor is for certain: Jones didn’t simply fail to reclaim the highest spot, he isn’t even in our high 5. It seems scoring a win over an opponent who hadn’t fought since 2021, hasn’t received since 2020, and instantly retired afterward doesn’t transfer the needle, even when that opponent is a legend like Miocic.

Peeling again the curtain, Jones ranked as excessive as No. 4 on our ballots (behind some mixture of Islam Makhachev, Alex Pereira, and Ilia Topuria), and as little as No. 12. Truly, that’s inaccurate, as a result of one panelist left him off utterly. When you’ve adopted our protection of the Jones-Aspinall drama this previous 12 months, it shouldn’t shock you who’s accountable for the Jones snub.

With out additional adieu, women and gents, it’s Mr. Jed Meshew!

Meshew: Why did I depart Jon Jones out of my pound-for-pound rankings? Effectively it’s fairly easy: he shouldn’t be in there.

Whereas Dana White might not perceive the distinction between present pound-for-pound discussions and Biggest of All Time discussions, I do, and Jones’s case for being a high pound-for-pound fighter at this second in time is extremely specious.

Jones has three wins this decade: a extremely controversial determination over Dominick Reyes, a demolition of Ciryl Gane, and his tidy thumping of Miocic this previous weekend.

Fairly frankly, solely the Gane win is significant. Reyes ought to have been a loss (and look the place Reyes is now) and I’m undecided Stipe could be a top-15 heavyweight at this second in time. (Additionally, heavyweight and light-weight heavyweight are garbo divisions).

Very critically, anybody rating Jones extremely at this level is doing it nearly completely based mostly on a 17-year resume and never with regard to what he’s completed lately. That’s definitely a solution to strategy this matter, however it’s one I imagine to be foolish. I need to reward fighters actively getting significant wins over related opposition. Jones is probably the best fighter of all time, however his current résumé is set missing.

There you may have it.

Talking for myself, I used to be one of many panelists who had Jones at No. 4 and, as Jed factors out, it’s primarily due to his accomplishments at gentle heavyweight. I can’t utterly dismiss the Gane and Miocic wins both, although these alone aren’t sufficient to persuade me to push him previous elite fighters who’ve been placing in work lately.

Jon Jones. No. 8 pound-for-pound. Talk about.

Lastly, a refresher on some floor guidelines:

• The six-person voting panel consists of MMA Preventing staffers Alexander Ok. Lee, Guilherme Cruz, Mike Heck, E. Casey Leydon, Damon Martin and Jed Meshew.
• Updates to the rankings will likely be accomplished following each UFC pay-per-view. Fighters will likely be faraway from the rankings if they don’t compete inside 18 months of their most up-to-date bout.
• Ought to a fighter announce their retirement, our panel will determine whether or not that fighter ought to instantly be faraway from the rankings or preserve their place till additional discover (let’s put it this fashion: we’d have taken Khabib Nurmagomedov out of our rankings loads faster than the UFC did).

As a reminder, the notion of pound-for-pound supremacy is at all times going to inherently be subjective. Once you’re debating whether or not somebody like Sean Strickland ought to be ranked above somebody like Charles Oliveira, there isn’t a true proper reply. In different phrases: It’s not severe enterprise, people.

Ideas? Questions? Considerations? Make your voice heard within the feedback under.