Boredom: The Curse Of Greatness

Watching UFC on Versus 2 made one thing painfully clear—Jon Jones is for real. He has been hailed as the most hyped fighter in history, and he has yet to disappoint.

With one lone controversial loss on his record, he has a picture perfect string of performances. Dominant, aggressive, with a flair and style that is seemingly impossible for anyone to figure out.

He has yet to be put in serious danger by any of the competition he’s faced. Therein lays the problem. He’s bored.

No one can deny that Jon Jones is a prodigy of the sport. He absorbs knowledge like a sponge, had the foresight to leave one great team for an even better team, and touts athletic ability that few can even come close to. He’s drawn comparison to Anderson Silva, due to his body type, overwhelming winning ability, and the fact that no one has put him in much danger. But look what that’s done to Silva.           

Anderson has become bored with the stagnated Middleweight division. Dana White has scrambled to find challengers worthy of a title fight. But to Anderson, no one is worthy. He’s spent his last fights dancing, clowning, and generally proving that no one belongs in the cage with him.

Cote, Leites, Maia, all elite level fighters at the time they fought Silva, were generally tooled and played with until time ran out for each of them (with a premature knee injury in Cote’s case) .           

Anderson is the pinnacle of fighting. Pinpoint and powerful striking, slick jiu-jitsu, and footwork that is second to none. He has beaten some of the world’s best during his tenure in the sport. He boasts just enough legitimate losses to know what he needed to improve on. And now, he’s the best. But what can he do? It will take a truly Biblical upset for “The Spider” to go down. Until then (or retirement) he will truly be the greatest in the game, then of all time.           

Anderson has reached the pinnacle of greatness. Jon Jones meteoric rise is still in its early stages. Other fighters have had stretches of greatness, but have never made it look as easy as these two. While Jones still has time to grow, he has already become disillusioned with this process of bringing himself up slowly. He’s hungry, and he wants the elite. And he should get it.

But what happens if he gets to the top without much effort? With his natural wrestling base and explosive ground and pound, his finishing ability won’t ever be in question. But the same was said of Anderson Silva’s striking. Years later, you either love his ability to deflate his opponent, or you are maddened by the state of his killer instinct.

With the UFC putting so much into Jon “Bones” Jones, can they really afford to have one of the greatest fighters to step into the cage clown around in the deepest division in the whole company? We shall see, but first we need to see if anyone can bring the fight out of Jones. For now, we have to settle for glorified squash fights.