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An Old Dog Puts A New Spin On Their Tricks
Jon Jones's Crushing Creativity
William
November 19th, 2024
FIRST THINGS FIRST
Jon Jones obliterated Stipe Miocic at UFC 309. Here we review what he did so well on the feet and floor.
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What's In Today's Letter?
TECHNICAL TAKEAWAYS:
Jon Jones’s Crushing Creativity
Like many predicted, Jon Jones ran right through Stipe Miocic. Yes, Miocic is old and was basically retired before this fight. But we shouldn’t stop our analysis there.
Jones showed incredibly clever maneuvers on the feet and floor that we can learn from. You can’t separate Stipe looking bad from what Jones did to him in the first round.
Everything in this fight built from Jones standing southpaw and kicking with the rear leg.
Jones and Miocic are high-fiving one another. Jones slams in an inside low kick. Miocic returns the favor. The two men circle and trade punches in the air before Jones digs a hard rear front kick into Miocic’s gut. Miocic doesn’t like it and he tries to blitz Jones. |  Jon Jones - Stipe Miocic |
Because Miocic was standing orthodox, there was nothing between him and Jones’s left side. Jones had an open lane to kick freely at Miocic with his left whenever he wanted.
Of course this means Miocic had an open lane for strikes off his right side as well, but he was never able to truly capitalize on it.
Jones built from these hard left kicks to land a lovely osoto otoshi later in the first round.
Jones throws a rear oblique kick at Miocic. It slides off Miocic and Jones plants his leg behind Miocic’s. Then he steps forward to trip Miocic with the osoto otoshi. Miocic starts to wrestle up but Jones steps over his legs. Then Jones elbows Miocic to plant him. |  Jon Jones - Stipe Miocic |
Jones’s commitment to kicking off the rear side culminated in him stopping Miocic with a horrific body kick near the end of the third round.
Jones is stalking Miocic. Jones kicks Miocic’s body. Now Miocic is almost on the fence so he has to circle. He doesn’t want to run into another left round kick so he walks to Jones’s right. Jones reads this and lands a destructive turning side kick. |  Jon Jones - Stipe Miocic |
Before we move on to anything else we have to take a look at what Jones did to Miocic on the floor. He completely shut down Stipe’s under hooks and brutalized him from half guard. Watch how Jones uses his head and pummeling to keep Miocic on his back.
Miocic is starting to push Jones away. Jones reclaims position by circling his head over Miocic’s arm and dropping his weight. Then Jones gets both of his arms inside and stands up to make space to drop elbows. |  Jon Jones - Stipe Miocic |
During the fight you could hear Jones’s grappling coach, Gordon Ryan, telling Jones to walk back into Miocic’s hips. Here is a continuation of the sequence above.
Perhaps more interesting is how Jones actively went back to Stipe’s half guard.
Jones is standing over Miocic’s half guard dropping elbows. Miocic starts to turn into him. Jones puts his forehead down and passes. Miocic gets up to an elbow. To prevent Miocic from standing ad wrestling, Jones cross faces him and walks back into his half guard. |  Jon Jones - Stipe Miocic |
By moving back into half guard, Jones was able to hit Miocic while sitting on Miocic’s legs, thereby preventing the stand-up. It’s hard not see a direct relationship between this tactic and Ryan’s old Renzo Gracie Academy teammate, Georges St-Pierre.
GSP is in half guard. As Hardy struggles to make space, GSP gets a cross face, under hook, and shifts his head over to pin Hardy’s shoulders to the mat. Now Hardy can just hold on for a few seconds before GSP passes his guard. |  Georges St-Pierre (GSP) - Dan Hardy |
Considering how much time Jones spent with Ryan in the lead up to his fight, it’s hard not to see how Jones’s half guard domination would be unrelated. GSP built a legacy off of holding people down in half guard, wearing them out, and slowly squeezing the life out of them while passing. He was never as destructive from half guard as Jones was Saturday, but it’s still interesting to see Jones adopting new tactics this late in the game.
While Jones was impressive, the fight was more disappointing than anything.
This whole fight week was advertised as a way to celebrate legacy. The UFC’s best light-heavyweight ever fighting against their best-heavyweight ever.
I loved watching Stipe Miocic’s prime. In 2024 he’s half a decade past those days. Miocic literally came out of a multi-year retirement to fight Jones. And while this legacy-labeled charade was being platformed, the UFC’s interim heavyweight champion sat in the stands patiently waiting for a fight he might never get.
Tom Aspinall has not only defended his interim heavyweight title, but he also called for a fight against Jones. Aspinall has asked, pleaded, and tried to insult Jones into joining him in the cage. At this point, it looks like the only person keeping Jones out of the cage opposite Aspinall is Jones himself.
Jones was trying to savor the sweet flavors of victory, but, with a ready Aspinall literally waiting in the stands for an opportunity to make the biggest heavyweight fight in UFC history, we’re left unsatisfied with the taste of sour duck in our mouth.
Ahead of this weekend’s fights we’re going to review the career of one of the UFC’s most unique prospects. If you want to read about the nomadic Mongolian herder with an 88% finishing rate, keep reading the premium section below.
LINKS, INSTRUCTIONALS, AND MORE MATCHES TO STUDY:
Jon Jones’s most impressive work came on the floor. If you want to learn more about passing and punishing people from top half guard you need to watch these two videos:
Jones hit an osoto otoshi in his fight against Stipe Miocic. I recommend watching this video to better understand osoto gari & osoto otoshi. The key difference to the two throws is in otoshi you plant your foot instead of sweeping it backwards to complete the throw.
THE ONLY NEWS THAT MATTERS THIS WEEK
Usually we put three stories here to catch up on interesting news from the past week. Today I want to do something a little different. I want to dissect one update that signals the beginning of the next major change in professional grappling.
Last week Dana White announced they signed Mikey Musumeci to an exclusive contract for grappling events. His first match is against Felipe Machado.
I don’t know much about Machado’s game. I don’t really care either. I’m more interested in what the UFC’s interest in professional grappling will do to the sport.
For most of the world, MMA is synonymous with the UFC. They make more money than all other MMA promotions in the world. Combined.
If the UFC is interested in taking over the tiny, fractured world of professional grappling they will. It’s that simple. No other MMA promotion has the backing of sovereign wealth funds from the Arabian peninsula, let alone any grappling promotions. Except, maybe, AIGA, but we already know anything about that Kazakh grappling league, much less where they’re getting funding.
I think the most realistic timeline is as follows.
2025 will be about building a brand. The UFC is going to start signing more and more athletes to exclusive contracts. The UFC’s Fight Pass Invitational will be the place to compete.
2026 will be about other promotions fighting back or fizzling out. You can’t maintain a professional grappling promotion if the best grapplers are on exclusive contracts elsewhere. Maybe some promotions will try to sign their own exclusive contracts. Maybe some athletes will want flexible grappling contracts. Either way, many promotions will start losing whatever relevance they have, or want to develop.
2027 will be about signing ADCC. A source reached out to me to say FloGrappling’s ADCC contract runs through 2026. At that point ADCC will be negotiating with other streaming platforms. There is no reason to think Flo will be able to outbid the UFC.
Furthermore, ADCC, the Abu Dhabi Combat Club, literally has roots in the country that currently finances the UFC’s parent company. You can click here if you want to read about how Mudabala helped finance the buyout of Eneavor. I can’t help but notice that the UFC became interested in professional grappling during the same year that CJI came out and took steam away from ADCC.
Could Abu Dhabi want to monopolize professional grappling through the fight promotion they own? Or, is Endeavor moving into professional grappling just the next step in their quest to take over entertainment?
It remains to be seen how this will be for both sides of the market. If the UFC starts giving every professional grappler $10,000+ to show up they won’t complain. More importantly, if it’s on Fight Pass and you get that combined with everything else they have, what fight fan would complain about the product’s convenience?
Whether you like it or not, the UFC is coming and they will change the sport. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
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