“Very beatable” – Anthony Smith drops SHOCKING remarks about Jon Jones’ caliber as a fighter
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Anthony Smith and Jon Jones
Widely regarded as the greatest fighter of our era, Jon Jones vacated his light heavyweight belt after his last title defense against Dominick Reyes at UFC 247 back in 2020.
Jones took this decision to move up to the heavyweight division, but it’s been almost 3 years and we’re yet to see him back inside the octagon. Some contractual negotiations delayed his return, but now he’s expected to face either Stipe Miocic, Curtis Blaydes, or Francis Ngannou upon his return.
Jones’s former opponent, Anthony Smith is still fighting killers in the light heavyweight division, and he shared some interesting analysis of Jones. Talking on Morning Kombat, he said, “Jon Jones is beatable, very beatable. He’s not that good, not individually. If you take his individual skill sets and you take them away, each one of those things are not a problem. It’s when you put them together and he puts it into the full package, it’s the problem.”
He added, “His fight IQ is not crazy high. He’s well-coached and he does what he’s told very, very well. He doesn’t actually make any decisions on his own. He’s very well-coached, and that’s a credit to him. I’m not saying it as a negative. I don’t think it’s a negative.”
Anthony Smith talks about Jon Jones’ greatest strengths as a fighter
Jones and Smith fought in the main event of UFC 235 back in 2019. Just like Jones’s every other opponent, Smith was expected to win the fight, but Jones dismantled him and secured a unanimous decision win.
Smith believes if we were to analyze Jones’s individual skills in detail they are not so great, his beauty lies in putting everything together and using his gifts to produce a fruitful outcome. He stated, “He’s a dog, for sure. But if you take his boxing, if Jon and I were to just box, I don’t think he’s the G.O.A.T. I think we have a very competitive striking match. If we’re just doing no-gi jiu-jitsu, I don’t think Jon Jones beats me in a jiu-jitsu match.”
Related – Throwback to the time when Khabib Nurmagomedov hailed Magomed Ankalaev as the future UFC champion
Smith added, “Wrestling, he probably wins that. But it’s not the individual skill set that he has, it’s the way that he puts it together. It’s his range and his distance management. He is a dog. He has a lot of physical gifts he uses very well.”
Smith lost his last against Magomed Ankalaev because of an ankle injury, he is now booked to face Jamahal Hill on March 11, 2023, at UFC Fight Night 222.
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Suryansh Thakur
(1600 Articles Published)