UFC 187: Jones vs. Johnson

Jon Jones (21-1-0) vs. Anthony Johnson (19-4-0)

Jon “Bones” Jones attempts to defend his title for the ninth time when he fights Anthony “Rumble” Johnson at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

At the age of 27, Jones is still in his prime and he has owned the light heavyweight title since early 2011 when he was just 23-years-old. This will be his ninth attempt to defend his title and in his past eight he won using a multitude of methods; four times by unanimous decision, twice by submission, once by technical submission and also took one fight with a TKO (elbows and punches). His last three matches have been won by unanimous decision and two of them were named the “Fight of the Night” with his bout against Alexander Gustafsson in September of 2013 being declared the “Fight of the Year.” Johnson will be looking to complete a near impossible feat of defeating Jones for the first time in over five years as he comes off nine straight wins. Three of those have been in the UFC and he has been dominant with four of his past six fights being decided by a knockout in the first round. His knockout ability was in full display in his last bout against Alexander Gustafsson when he earned the “Performance of the Night” after taking him down with punches after just two minutes and 15 seconds. The 31-year-old is a former champion wrestler and should give Jones quite a fight with his ability to get a quick knockout.

Jones is one of the more athletic fighters in the sport and can outlast nearly any opponent as evidenced by his average fight going 13:27. He has six wins by decision in his career but has nine total knockouts and his only loss was due to a disqualification with illegal downward elbows back in late 2009. When in the octagon, he is very aggressive, landing 4.26 significant strikes per minute at a solid 54% accuracy. In each of his past three matchups, each won by unanimous decision, Jones has landed an average of 121.3 significant strikes per match and has allowed his opponent to get to him a mere 111 times total over his past two outings. When he faced Daniel Cormier in his last time out, Jones was able to land 92 significant strikes compared to just 58 by Cormier and was very successful (34-for-41, 83%) when going after the body. His defense has also been phenomenal overall with opponents getting a meager 1.97 significant strikes per minute as he deflects 66% of attempts and 94% of takedown attempts. He’s successfully taken down his opponent three times in three of the past four fights and has used that to get 0.7 submissions attempted per 15 minutes. He has dominated almost all of his fights and it will take a special night for his opponent to get a victory.

Johnson has been amazing in his three bouts since coming back to the UFC in mid-2014 with his last two matches ending in a knockout within the first three minutes. He has taken little in terms of hits in those fights, allowing opponents to get in a mere 31 significant strikes and when he went toe-to-toe with Antonio Rogerio Nogueira was able to avoid his hits as he took him down with a punch in just 44 seconds. Overall he is getting 3.33 significant strikes per minute and has defended against strikes 66% of the time with them landing a putrid 1.65 per minute. Although he hasn’t had a takedown in his past four fights, it is a strong part of his repertoire as he averages 2.53 takedowns per 15 minutes and defends against them 85% of the time. Of course his biggest chance of getting an upset victory in this match stems from him landing a knockout and if he isn’t able to do so early on he doesn’t have a very good chance.