Heavyweight has always been the UFC’s problem child.
This has been the case since the very inception of weight classes in American MMA. Ever since Mark Coleman kicked off his stint as the inaugural UFC heavyweight champion with three straight Octagon losses and then a decade-long sojourn in Japan, the die has been duly cast.
With a puddle-shallow talent pool and persistent, crippling instability at the top, the 265-pounders have never been able to take their rightful places on the summit of the UFC’s promotional mountain. For a few golden years, Brock Lesnar gave us a glimpse of the division’s potential before a rare intestinal disease and a limited skill set slayed him, too.
Mostly, heavyweight has been one long, hot mess.
Could Jon Jones change all that?
Turning around nearly two decades of sad volatility seems like a lot to ask of just one man. Then again, this sport has yet to find a challenge over which Jones can’t triumph.
After all, for the last five years Jones has been the unbeatable kingpin in the UFC’s actual glamour division. With heavyweight perennially stuck in rebuilding mode, the job of being the Octagon’s biggest and brightest stars has always fallen to the light heavies—and Jones is the best that 205 pounds has ever seen.
We’ve always known light heavyweight couldn’t hold him forever. He’s a big man with big visions, the sort who was always going to seek out the stiffest challenges.
During the last few months, however, our notions of Jones' moving to heavyweight have taken on added gravity. Last November, in his first interview since the UFC reinstated him from a six-month suspension after a hit-and-run accident, Jones told MMA Fighting.com’s Ariel Helwani that he would “definitely” wind up at heavyweight.
About a month later, his boss concurred.
“He'll still be a light heavyweight [when he returns], but he's planning on making that move to heavyweight—he definitely is," UFC President Dana White said during an appearance on ESPN in early December (via MMA Fighting). “Jones looks awesome. He's one of those freakish kind of athletes. He might be the best who's ever done it. He might be the best that's ever been in the game."
In the photos and videos that have emerged of him since coming back from suspension, he looks increasingly beastly. It’s frightening to think the man unilaterally regarded as the best MMA fighter on the planet might be returning better than ever.
Near the end of January, things unexpectedly got really serious.
When UFC 196’s heavyweight main event fell apart, Jones tacitly offered to step in to fight contender Stipe Miocic if the UFC would put the title on the line. The idea was tantalizing, but the short notice likely made it impossible, and the blockbuster fight announcement never came.
Instead, Jones got busy planning his own future. Earlier this week, during an exchange with fans on Twitter, he appeared to confirm that his light heavyweight days are numbered:
Not that much of this qualifies as breaking news. We expect Jones’ rematch with Daniel Cormier for the light heavyweight title to go down sometime in the spring. If Jones wins—and he'll certainly be the favorite—it’s been widely assumed he’ll face dangerous striker Anthony Johnson next.
Johnson is coming off an 86-second destruction of Ryan Bader at last weekend’s UFC on Fox 18.
This biggest shocker of the above tweets is Jones’ apparent desire to rematch with Alexander Gustafsson, surely in order erase the memory of his lackluster performance at UFC 165. He won that fight, but circling back to make sure he leaves no doubt would be classic Jones.
While they fall far short of confirmation, Jones' tweets are the closest thing we’ve gotten to an official expiration date on his career at light heavyweight. If his own timeline holds true—admittedly a big if in this unpredictable sport—it’s possible he could be ready for the jump to heavyweight by early 2017.
And let’s not mince words here: That would be the most exciting thing to happen in the UFC in a long, long time. It’s possible Jones could turn out to be the game-changing, stabilizing force the 265-pound class has needed all along.
Light heavyweight has obviously been no match for him. His run there has been typified by one shutout performance after another, including a stretch in 2011-12 where he defeated five former 205-pound champions in a row.
Seeing him try to recreate that success against the sport’s biggest athletes would be fascinating for two reasons.
First, it would amount to the most interesting athletic test we’ve seen in Jones' UFC career.
Second, it would give us a chance to see if he’s capable of dragging the beleaguered heavyweight division to some semblance of respectability.
To see how much help the big boys need, one must look no further than the recent demise of UFC 196. This weekend, a welterweight bout between Johny Hendricks and Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson will serve as that fight card’s makeshift main event—except now it will be called “UFC Fight Night 82” and will air for free on Fox Sports 1.
The change became necessary when first challenger Cain Velasquez and then champion Fabricio Werdum dropped out at the last minute. Miocic was briefly linked to a short-notice replacement bout—and Jones teased us with possibility—but in the end the heavyweights had to bow off the card completely.
It would be bad enough if this were an isolated incident, but the truth is, it’s very much in keeping with the rest of the 265-pound division’s history.
The heavyweight class is the UFC’s sleeping giant. It should be the most popular thing going in MMA, but years and years of injuries, contract holdouts and performance-enhancing-drug busts have turned it into a freak show.
But there’s no question that heavyweight could be the UFC’s crown jewel, if it could just get out of its own way.
Could Jones be the man to do it? There aren’t many more interesting questions in the UFC ranks than whether he could hold his own with the sport’s true giants.
Would Jones’ speed and athleticism give him the edge over smaller heavyweights like Miocic or Velasquez? Would his size and wrestling base—always his two best tools at light heavyweight—still play against behemoths like Ben Rothwell or Travis Browne?
Nobody knows, but the opportunity to find out seems too good to pass up.
If Jones could put his own career hiccups behind him and become the sort of champion at heavyweight that he has been at 205 pounds, it might finally give the weight class solid ground on which to build. The heavyweights might even reach their destinies as the UFC’s best attractions.
And that would be truly big.
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