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Penick's Take
PENICK: Jon Jones' quick rise reminiscent of young "Shogun" in Pride
Feb 7, 2011 - 6:45:11 PM
PENICK: Jon Jones' quick rise reminiscent of young "Shogun" in Pride
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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Jon_Jones_180_1.jpeg
23-year-old Jon Jones had a great weekend in Las Vegas. Taking on his biggest fight yet against fellow light heavyweight prospect Ryan Bader, Jones shed that label with a dominant and one sided performance that led to a second round submission victory, and the night only got sweeter from there.

With the revelation of an injury to Rashad Evans, Jones found himself receiving the opportunity of a lifetime, a shot at UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Mauricio "Shogun" Rua in just six weeks at UFC 128.

The fight came together in unprecedented fashion, with UFC officials finding out about the severity of Evans' injuries on Saturday, then bringing the fight up to Shogun, who was in the arena, and finally offering the fight to Jones publicly via Joe Rogan in the post-fight interview. UFC President Dana White spoke about getting the fight together at the post-fight press conference.

"I don’t know if you saw, but earlier we told Shogun that, 'Listen, if this kid wins, we want to put him in there for the fight [at UFC 128],'" he said. "We talked for a while about it. Right before Jones and Bader came out, him and his team accepted the fight."

White admitted they didn't have a back-up plan for Shogun had Bader pulled off the win, but he also said they didn't reveal their plans to Jones ahead of time. Per White, there was no need to add extra pressure to him in the fight.

"Literally after he won, I walked up in the Octagon and told Jon, 'Do you want to take this fight?'" White said. "He said, 'Yeah.' That's literally how the fight was made tonight.

"This kid has enough pressure already. He's going into this big fight with Bader. You don't want to sit there and go, 'Hey, if you win this fight, how would you like to fight 'Shogun?'' This whole thing just sort of played out. It literally played out beside the Octagon right before Bader and Jones walked out."

So now the question ultimately becomes whether or not this opportunity is coming too soon for Jones.

He's made a very fast rise up the ranks in the UFC. He entered the organization in 2008 after nine months of MMA training. He hadn't even been competing in MMA for four months when he fought for the first time in the Octagon at UFC 87 in Minneapolis, and he had already won six fights, all by stoppage.

Though he went to the scorecards twice in a row against Andre Gusmao and Stephan Bonnar, he hasn't reached the third round in five fights since. And he's done nothing but destroy his competition. Even in his DQ loss to Matt Hamill, he busted Hamill's shoulder prior to the illegal 12-6 elbows.

But despite the relative inexperience, Jones has proven to be one of the quickest studies in the sport. He has phenomenal natural size, talent and abilities, but he has absorbed a lot of knowledge in a short amount of time, and has proven up to each successive challenge he's faced. He broke Bader's will in that fight on Saturday night. He got him to the ground, and forced Bader to react to everything he was doing, taking him completely out of his game and allowing Jones to find his spots grappling and eventually find that choke.

And for all of the talk about his age, one need look no further than Shogun himself for a history lesson on big fights at this age. At 23 years of age, Shogun picked up five straight wins in PRIDE, blasting through the likes of Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Alistair Overeem and Ricardo Arona with first round stoppages to win the Pride Middleweight (below 205 lbs.) Grand Prix. A fluky arm break against Mark Coleman the next year was the only hiccup of his career in Pride, and when he entered the UFC in 2007 he was widely considered the best light heavyweight fighter in the world.

Shogun's not alone. At 23, current UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre got his first shot at the UFC's Welterweight Championship. He lost that fight to Matt Hughes, but he learned from the experience, improved as a fighter and is now widely considered one of the top two fighters in the world.

Jon Jones can be in that category. He's not there yet, he's got a lot of growing to do, a lot of learning and a lot of improvement to still make in his career, but that doesn't mean this is too soon. He was unscathed in the fight with Bader, and he's got six weeks to physically and mentally prepare for this fight in New Jersey on March 19.

He may not be able to defeat Shogun in this fight, but he's been so physically impressive and entertaining in his fights that the UFC made the right call in giving him a shot. And though him opening as a favorite over the Champion is probably not the right line, there's a reason he's gotten to this point so fast. He's young, athletic, fun to watch, and rest assured, he very well could become one of the youngest champions in UFC history.

The next major step in his evolution as a fighter comes on March 19, and win or lose, Jones is going take another step towards being one of the best fighters in the sport.


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