Jon Jones Is Back, but Not Necessarily Better Than Ever, After UFC 197 Win

Jon Jones was a terrifying man before he was stripped of the UFC light heavyweight title.

From a quantitative perspective, he was one of the best in the history of the sport, becoming the youngest champion in UFC history in 2011 and defending the strap against a who's who of challengers. From a qualitative perspective, he was a true innovator of violence, rolling out bold new techniques on a regular basis and proving their effectiveness against high-level competition.

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What made him even scarier, though, was the fact that he was that good without trying particularly hard. He partied during training camp. He drank like a fish and smoked like a chimney. Sometimes, he came into fights unprepared. 

Despite that, he just kept winning. As he told MMA Fighting's Ariel Helwani (h/t Fox Sports' Elias Cepeda for the transcription):

"

I had a lot of my mentors, coaches, and friends that would tell me that. Like, 'Jon, you party with the best of them and you still are able to be one of the top fighters in the world.' But, at the time I really didn't feel as if it was an issue. ... Very few guys have gone to decision with me. Those guys were some of the top guys in light heavyweight history. So, I felt no pressure to really stop being such a wild guy because of how well everything was going.

"

The result of Jones' lifestyle, of course, was the infamous 2015 hit-and-run case, which saw his title taken, his career halted and his future turned uncertain. The world was no longer Jones' oyster, and that forced him to get serious. 

He hit the weight room and transformed from a spindly 205-pounder to a physical specimen. He sobered up and became a cerebral assassin. He pushed himself harder and vowed to live up to his potential. 

With that, the narrative of Jones' comeback changed from "Can he bounce back from this?" to "How much better will he be?" And with that, the expectations became unrealistically high.

Jones returned at UFC 197 opposite the unheralded Ovince Saint Preux, and while the performance was flat-out dominant, many fans were left unsatisfied.

From the start of the fight, the difference in their technical prowess was obvious. Jones pressed forward, flicking kicks, working his hands and mixing in elbows. Saint Preux, for the most part, tried in vain to explode forward with a big left hand.

OSP's raw athleticism allowed him to keep Jones honest in the early goings of the fight. A former linebacker for the Tennessee Volunteers, his constant movement and lateral quickness kept Jones uncomfortable. Despite being handily out-landed by the former champ, the proceedings remained somewhat competitive.

Unfortunately, the championship rounds came, and OSP's cardio went.

Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images

Slower than he was in the first two frames, OSP became a training dummy for Jones. Oblique kicks landed without answer. He was outmuscled in the clinch. Eventually, he was freely lifted up and slammed down on double-leg takedown attempts. OSP would survive to the final horn, but he did little more than that.

The fight, officially, went down as a unanimous decision to the tune of 50-44, 50-45, 50-45, advancing Jones' record to 22-1. Unofficially, though, the fight went down as a disappointment.

Saint Preux (19-8), despite being a solid talent, is far from elite. Having lost to Ryan Bader and Glover Teixeira over the past two years, the expectation among fans was for the new and improved Jones to maul him the same way he mauled fighters like Brandon Vera and Vladimir Matyushenko. It was a lofty standard that was nearly impossible to live up to short of a first-round stoppage.

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Jon Jones is apologizing for his performance. Keep in mind he just blanked a top 10 light heavyweight after 15+months off. #UFC197

— Jonathan Snowden (@JESnowden) April 24, 2016"

While many were let down by the lack of a quick finish, this was still a strong performance by Jones. There was no question that he won every single round and, outside of two solid punches, Saint Preux mustered up no legitimate offense.

In a vacuum, this win is a vintage Jones performance: dominant, thorough and practically effortless. Alas, it was not in a vacuum. It was in an MGM Grand Garden Arena packed with fans wanting to see Jones one-up himself. 

The key takeaway from this fight is that Jones is still a magnificent fighter, and despite everything else, he can outclass top-10 competition. But how good is the motivated, in-shape, clean-cut Jones? The world will just have to wait and see.