Ahead of each UFC battle card, Jay Primetown of MMAOddsBreaker.com takes a look at a few of the essential competitions at each event. In the most recent installment, we look at UFC 214’s blockbuster main event as Jon Jones returns to the Octagon to face Daniel Cormier in a bitter grudge match for the light heavyweight championship.
Daniel Cormier (Record: 19-1, +235 Underdog, Power Ranking: A+)
The 38-year-old Olympic wrestler turned MMA fighter has become one of the best light heavyweights of all time. Of his 20 bouts, the only time he saw defeat was to Jones at the first meeting. Since that blow in 2015, Cormier has won four straight bouts, with successes over Alexander Gustafsson, Anthony Johnson (twice) and Anderson Silva.
Being undersized has never been an issue for Cormier in MMA. He really made a name for himself in Strikeforce, beating the likes of Josh Barnett and Antonio Silva are the final heavyweight champion in the organization before it was acquired by the UFC. Once in the UFC, Cormier quickly transitioned to light and has become a Hall of Fame-caliber fighter. Despite being under six feet tall with just a 72.5-inch reach, Cormier has rarely had a problem with competitions even giving up to a foot in reach and six inches in height.
Cormier is strong. He lands 3.78 significant strikes per minute despite consuming just 2.07. He secures nearly two takedowns a 15 minutes in the cage with an astonishing 42 percent success rate on takedowns. Cormier has very good footwork for the weight class and does well to close space and force opponents to battle him at close range. He doesn’t possess the knockout power to put quality competitions away early, but he has an excellent chin, forcing rivals into a physical, energy draining bout. He is shown to be one of the toughest fighters to handle in a cage within 25 minutes.
Jon Jones (Record: 22-1, -255 Favorite, Power Ranking: A++)
The 30-year-old Endicott, New York native is one of the greatest mixed martial artists of all-time. In 23 fights, his hands has been raised in all but one of these matches. The lone time it was not increased was due to a disqualification in a fight he was winning decisively. Jones returns to action for the first time as an April 2016 decision win over Ovince Saint Preux, This battle will clean out any applicable contenders in his weight class.
The Jackson’s MMA product is the top fighter in the world for a lot of reasons. To start, physically he is very talented because his 84.5-inch hit is right near the top of the game. Jones uses his span very nicely, as he lands a whopping 2.25 more important strikes a minute than he absorbs. He puts him right near the top of the UFC in that class as well. He combines that with 94 percent takedown defense, making him hard to strike and hard to take to the mat.
Jones combines that defensive art having a creative striking game using a lot of unorthodox kicks. On the ground, Jones has as barbarous of ground-and-pound as anybody in MMA. He delivers vicious elbows at top controller and is capable of completing in any fight from that position. Jones has spent a lot of time around the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu mats in his time away from MMA and it’s certainly possible he incorporates a considerable submission grappling focus to his own MMA prowess.
Matchup
In the most anticipated MMA bout of 2017, the former winner Jones returns to recover his light heavyweight championship against the current champ Cormier. In their first bout, the fight was fairly even after two rounds, but Jones’ body function really begun to pay dividends at the next round, since he actually started to out-land Cormier to acquire a determination. Furthermore, Jones also out-grappled Cormier, procuring three takedowns compared to the one that his opponent had from the bout.
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