Jon Jones has become the fighter with the highest takedown defense percentage in the UFC with a whopping 95%. Over his extensive career, he has stuffed down 38 takedown attempts out of 40. Put the 15 years of his career into perspective, this percentage sounds even more outrageous. And ‘Bones’ is acutely aware of it.
With this record, Bones has now surpassed the ‘King of Rio’, Jose Aldo. Aldo also has an impressive 92% takedowns defended, followed by Kamaru Usman at 90%. Jones himself posted the statistics on his Instagram page.
View this post on Instagram
Of course, none of this actually changed the minds of fans, who were kind enough to remind him that he must still fight the interim heavyweight champion, Tom Aspinall.
So naturally, Nina-Marie Daniele had to defend him!
“GOAT! And it’s crazy that no matter how great you will still have doubters You are the GOAT Jonny!”
That’s one way to look at it for sure. Regardless of how many people he fights, and how many contenders he vanquished, there will always be those who find a way to question his greatness. Rightfully or not, is another matter altogether.
That said, none of this is stopping Jones from breaking records.
Jones’s advice for the younglings
Earlier this week, Jones revealed that with his win over Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 at MSG, he now has 17 world title defenses to his name.
The only person even close to him is another great, Georges St-Pierre, with 13. That is a distant second for all goods and purposes.
But let no one say Jones is a vain man. While he used the post to talk about his own greatness, Jones also penned a message to the future champions.
“who’s gonna catch me?…Chasing this record might be the toughest fight of all, but hey, I believe in you, champs of the future. Just… pace yourselves. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
View this post on Instagram
Of course, there will still always be a very dark cloud of failed doping tests and arrests overshadowing his long career, but that is a conversation for another day.
