Jon Jones – Mauricio Rua: UFC 128 Awaits
By Sean Farrell
Jon “Bones” Jones has solidified his place in the UFC light heavyweight division by crushing yet another opponent and improving to 6-1 inside the Octagon. Ultimate Fighter winner Ryan Bader at UFC 126 was no match for Jones in a bout in which both fighters were considered top UFC talents.
Bader proved he is nowhere near anything Jones has accomplished thus far and is far and away from being considered elite with his abysmal performance. Jones’ victory has granted him a title shot against UFC Champion Mauricio “Shogun” Rua at UFC 128.
After his impressive win this was not a match made with normal fight negotiations.
After hearing scheduled opponent Rashad Evans is going to be out eight weeks with a strained ligament in his knee, UFC President Dana White and matchmaker Joe Silva got the wheels rolling on Jones facing Rua before Jones even won the fight.
According to UFC President Dana White, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua agreed in principal to the fight right with Jones before his dominating victory over Ryan Bader. Not even 2 rounds later, after his guillotine submission victory, an emotional Jones was also in agreement.
UFC President Dana White spoke on the colossal bout that is only six weeks away stating “We did the deal literally, I don’t know if you saw, but earlier, we told “Shogun” that, “Hey, listen, if this kid wins, we want to put him in there for the fight, We talked for a while about it. Right before Jones and Bader came out, him and his team accepted the fight.”
Jones had no clue any of this was going on, as he was more concerned about winning his bout with Bader and getting over the stubbed toe he suffered on the way to the ring. The 23-year-old phenom was expecting to have his hands full with Bader, an undefeated contender going into this bout and ended up destroying Bader with little if any resistance at all.
Jones easily “stuffed” the former Arizona State Sun Devil’s takedowns with relative ease and controlled the action on the mat, shooting for many submissions and ground and pound whenever he could with what seemed like no worry at all about Bader’s offense. Jones secured the fight-ending guillotine choke near the end of the second round and was victorious. “Literally after he won, I walked up in the Octagon and told Jon, ‘Do you want to take this fight?'” White said. “He said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s literally how the fight was made tonight. This kid has enough pressure already. He’s going into this big fight with Bader. You don’t want to sit there and go, ‘Hey, if you win this fight, how would you like to fight ‘Shogun?” This whole thing just sort of played out. It literally played out beside the Octagon right before Bader and Jones walked out.”
One question was left to be asked and that was if Jones lost was there a plan B? “There was not,” White said bluntly. UFC 128 takes place March 19 on Pay-Per-View. New York native Jon Jones will have the home-field advantage as the event takes place at the Prudential Center in nearby Newark, N.J.
Leading up to Saturday afternoon and evening, White wasn’t sure if Rua would fight at the event with no contender. Throughout the past week, rumors swirled about Rashad Evans suffering a knee injury but nothing was confirmed White went on to say “I was driving to the arena at like 2:30 this afternoon when I found out Rashad was out for sure. He had a sprained ligament. He had it looked at in New Mexico, and then we always fly the guys out here to see our doctor, Dr. (Steven) Saunders, and he agreed. He gave the exact same diagnosis. He has to take six to eight weeks off, and he has to wear a brace. Hopefully he won’t need surgery.”
Jones knew of Evans’ injury as the two fighters train together at Greg Jackson’s camp, after all.
Jones said he may have pushed for the title shot if it became available to him, but to Jones’ surprise the UFC officials had already went in that direction. “I did hear about Rashad, but I had no clue my title shot was coming, would I have asked for it? Sure. My goal is to be considered the best fighter in the light-heavyweight division. One of the reasons I look up to Jose Aldo so much is because he’s a 23-year-old world champion too, and he’s doing great with it. I feel as if it’s my time. My confidence is very high, and I’m already in shape. I’ve got six weeks to make myself even better, and that’s what I’m excited about.”
This fight will be the toughest Jones has ever encountered with Maurico”Shogun” Rua, Rua has the power, leg kicks, and monster overhand right that can and has given many fighters problems. However, one must look at Rua recently, he’s suffered reconstructive surgery twice on his knee and has been in only 5 fights in the UFC going 3-2.
Rua was Pride FC’s king going 12-1 in the organization but since Zuffa LLC bought the company in 2007, Rua has only been in those five fights since. His 3 wins were not against top level opponents by any means. Rua lost his first fight in the UFC to a then very raw Forrest Griffin, then went on to face over the hill fighters Mark Coleman and Chuck Liddell KOing them both. Outside of those three, he’s fought Lyoto Machida twice and has gone 1-1 in those bouts winning the rematch by KO and becoming the UFC Light Heavyweight Champion. Liddell is now retired, Coleman is now fake fighting in studio wrestling in Japan, and Lyoto Machida is currently about to face a 48 year old man in Randy Couture, a must win fight to stay employed for Machida. Out of all of Rua’s UFC opponents, Griffin was the only one of relevance and “Shogun” was submitted in that fight. Rua is still feared as one of the elite in MMA but he truly hasn’t been elite since Pride FC was around and has been on the decline since.
Since 2008, Jon Jones has been in 13 fights and has won all of them but 3 by stoppage. The 3 he didn’t finish were two unanimous decision victories, one of which was a 15 minute highlight reel vs. Stephan Bonnar, the other the domination of Andre Gusmao. The third and final bout, Jon Jones actually did finish he just happened to do it with an illegal elbow and got disqualified. By many opinions, he is still unbeaten as Matt Hamill was being decimated until that point anyways and Jones was clearly seconds away from being victorious before that illegal elbow.
With Rua clearly on the decline in his career and Jones rising higher than a 747 jet liner there is no shock that Jones is favored in this fight as a -150 favorite and Rua is a +120 underdog despite being champion. If Rua is on top of his game much like he was in Pride FC, Jones will be in serious trouble. Unless that happens, Jones wins this fight easily using his 84.5” reach, striking from all angles and multiple takedowns from his far superior wrestling skills. There is really only one thing to say about Jones and it’s far from negative and that is just where exactly is this kid’s ceiling.