Saturday's light heavyweight challenger Dominick Reyes recently said that he intends to exploit a perceived weakness in division champion Jon Jones' boxing skills. Bones was not impressed.
"Have you seen his mitt work?" said Jones, as transcribed by Damon Martin for MMA Fighting. "He has a tremendous left hand. I'm sure he's going to work on his right hand, especially because I've brought it up so much. But my job is not to go out there and get into a boxing match.
"My job is to be the better mixed martial arts fighter. Like I said, I'm very aware that his best counters come in boxing combinations and I'm not going to give him what he wants. It's going to be a mixed martial arts fight."
"He has power. We can't deny that. I've seen him kick people in the head and knock them out. I've seen him drop people with that left and you've got to respect it. At the end of the day, I could sit in front of you guys and act like I've got it all in the bag but at the end of the day, you don't know what's going to happen out there. Anything can happen out there.
"So I've just got to respect him tremendously, which I have. We've done everything possible that we can do to be strong mentally, spiritually, physically for this fight. He's a worthy opponent."
Sprawl'n'Stall - JBJ with a respectful quote? He's right all the way too.
Perhaps he and Conor have the same PR Team.
(A joke, obviously - before I get flamed.)
Jon has him covered. Reyes might enjoy some success in the first round whilst JJ figures out distance but I suspect he's in for a surprise when Jon starts to attack his legs.
Reyes' personality is vanilla as a mother fucker. LIstening to him promote himself is like having a 2nd grader tell you a story. A couple sentences in and you're like "fuck, okay I'll pretend to be interested but I can tell this will be boring and a waste of time".
I think Reyes finishes Jones in the first two rounds.
Reyes has some really tricky footwork. I see a Jones forward moving attack that Reyes uses some shifting to roll out and exit to Jones right side and re enter with some bombs before Jones backs away and resets his footwork. Similar to how Vasyl uses movement to create angles to attack from and catch people in bad positions.
Jones has by virtue of being so long and reachy has never really had to worry about his defense backing away. His reach has been such a game changer for him that he often just goes straight backwards and resets his footwork while using the outstretched hand to poke eyes on any forward moving opponent. This is the reason why he had a lot of trouble in the first Gustafson fight. He didn't have the reach luxury and Gus was able to hit him while he retreated and give him problems that kept that fight close.
Reyes is a slicker harder hitting Gustafson in my opinion.
I think Reyes finishes Jones in the first two rounds.
Reyes has some really tricky footwork. I see a Jones forward moving attack that Reyes uses some shifting to roll out and exit to Jones right side and re enter with some bombs before Jones backs away and resets his footwork. Similar to how Vasyl uses movement to create angles to attack from and catch people in bad positions.
Jones has by virtue of being so long and reachy has never really had to worry about his defense backing away. His reach has been such a game changer for him that he often just goes straight backwards and resets his footwork while using the outstretched hand to poke eyes on any forward moving opponent. This is the reason why he had a lot of trouble in the first Gustafson fight. He didn't have the reach luxury and Gus was able to hit him while he retreated and give him problems that kept that fight close.
Reyes is a slicker harder hitting Gustafson in my opinion.
So not just beaten - beaten inside of two rounds. We'll have to come back to this thread.
I think Reyes finishes Jones in the first two rounds.
Reyes has some really tricky footwork. I see a Jones forward moving attack that Reyes uses some shifting to roll out and exit to Jones right side and re enter with some bombs before Jones backs away and resets his footwork. Similar to how Vasyl uses movement to create angles to attack from and catch people in bad positions.
Jones has by virtue of being so long and reachy has never really had to worry about his defense backing away. His reach has been such a game changer for him that he often just goes straight backwards and resets his footwork while using the outstretched hand to poke eyes on any forward moving opponent. This is the reason why he had a lot of trouble in the first Gustafson fight. He didn't have the reach luxury and Gus was able to hit him while he retreated and give him problems that kept that fight close.
Reyes is a slicker harder hitting Gustafson in my opinion.
I think Reyes finishes Jones in the first two rounds.
Reyes has some really tricky footwork. I see a Jones forward moving attack that Reyes uses some shifting to roll out and exit to Jones right side and re enter with some bombs before Jones backs away and resets his footwork. Similar to how Vasyl uses movement to create angles to attack from and catch people in bad positions.
Jones has by virtue of being so long and reachy has never really had to worry about his defense backing away. His reach has been such a game changer for him that he often just goes straight backwards and resets his footwork while using the outstretched hand to poke eyes on any forward moving opponent. This is the reason why he had a lot of trouble in the first Gustafson fight. He didn't have the reach luxury and Gus was able to hit him while he retreated and give him problems that kept that fight close.
Reyes is a slicker harder hitting Gustafson in my opinion.
In what fights does Reyes shifts out of the way from the power side of his opponent and fire back before his opponent can evade? I think you are getting shifting and slipping mixed up. Jon not only has been able to avoid most of every power shot/combination ever thrown at him he also has one of the best chins in the game. Jones always fights to his opponent's abilities. We have never witnessed Reyes come back from adversity in any of his fights that you can find tape on, not one and to say he wont find adversity against Jones most likely just proves that you just dont like Jones and disparage his skills.
I think Reyes finishes Jones in the first two rounds.
Reyes has some really tricky footwork. I see a Jones forward moving attack that Reyes uses some shifting to roll out and exit to Jones right side and re enter with some bombs before Jones backs away and resets his footwork. Similar to how Vasyl uses movement to create angles to attack from and catch people in bad positions.
Jones has by virtue of being so long and reachy has never really had to worry about his defense backing away. His reach has been such a game changer for him that he often just goes straight backwards and resets his footwork while using the outstretched hand to poke eyes on any forward moving opponent. This is the reason why he had a lot of trouble in the first Gustafson fight. He didn't have the reach luxury and Gus was able to hit him while he retreated and give him problems that kept that fight close.
Reyes is a slicker harder hitting Gustafson in my opinion.
I think this is the second most likely outcome next to a Jones dec. You bring up some great points in the argument.
I think Reyes finishes Jones in the first two rounds.
Reyes has some really tricky footwork. I see a Jones forward moving attack that Reyes uses some shifting to roll out and exit to Jones right side and re enter with some bombs before Jones backs away and resets his footwork. Similar to how Vasyl uses movement to create angles to attack from and catch people in bad positions.
Jones has by virtue of being so long and reachy has never really had to worry about his defense backing away. His reach has been such a game changer for him that he often just goes straight backwards and resets his footwork while using the outstretched hand to poke eyes on any forward moving opponent. This is the reason why he had a lot of trouble in the first Gustafson fight. He didn't have the reach luxury and Gus was able to hit him while he retreated and give him problems that kept that fight close.
Reyes is a slicker harder hitting Gustafson in my opinion.
You sir I think are 100% correct it's how I anticipate him winning as well
I think Reyes finishes Jones in the first two rounds.
Reyes has some really tricky footwork. I see a Jones forward moving attack that Reyes uses some shifting to roll out and exit to Jones right side and re enter with some bombs before Jones backs away and resets his footwork. Similar to how Vasyl uses movement to create angles to attack from and catch people in bad positions.
Jones has by virtue of being so long and reachy has never really had to worry about his defense backing away. His reach has been such a game changer for him that he often just goes straight backwards and resets his footwork while using the outstretched hand to poke eyes on any forward moving opponent. This is the reason why he had a lot of trouble in the first Gustafson fight. He didn't have the reach luxury and Gus was able to hit him while he retreated and give him problems that kept that fight close.
Reyes is a slicker harder hitting Gustafson in my opinion.
So what happened in the 2nd Gus fight then?
An intentional knee to the groin giving Gus a hernia so he could barely move
I think Reyes finishes Jones in the first two rounds.
Reyes has some really tricky footwork. I see a Jones forward moving attack that Reyes uses some shifting to roll out and exit to Jones right side and re enter with some bombs before Jones backs away and resets his footwork. Similar to how Vasyl uses movement to create angles to attack from and catch people in bad positions.
Jones has by virtue of being so long and reachy has never really had to worry about his defense backing away. His reach has been such a game changer for him that he often just goes straight backwards and resets his footwork while using the outstretched hand to poke eyes on any forward moving opponent. This is the reason why he had a lot of trouble in the first Gustafson fight. He didn't have the reach luxury and Gus was able to hit him while he retreated and give him problems that kept that fight close.
Reyes is a slicker harder hitting Gustafson in my opinion.
Reyes doesn't hold a candle to prime Gus in any facet of the game, let alone boxing.