Anthony Smith gives his thoughts on Jon Jones’ UFC 239 performance
No one knew who won Jon Jones vs. Thiago Santos until Bruce Buffer read the third judge’s scorecard. This has never happened before in “Bones” career and was a fight and that not many expected.
Jon Jones did not look like himself, to say the least, and Anthony Smith agrees with that.
“I’m having a really hard time putting my finger on it,” Anthony Smith said to MMA on Sirius XM. “I’m not sure what’s happening.
“Jon was so ahead of the game early in his career — he was kind of like a unicorn, he was just so much different. As the game evolves, I don’t want to say everybody’s catching up, but everybody’s catching up. I don’t know how else to say it. I think that there’s enough tape out there on Jon that he’s running out of new things that people haven’t seen. When he first blew up and he was just running through people, I believe he’s one of the people that you can credit with the evolution of the fight game.
“I think that he leveled up the game just in terms of his ability to think on the fly. And I think it opened up everyone’s eyes and everyone’s minds to new stuff. But eventually you’re going to run out of stuff.
“I think we’ve gotten to who Jon Jones is,” Anthony Smith concluded. “I think we’ve seen him run his course of what he’s doing. I’m not saying he’s not going to get better or get more dangerous if he adds more wrinkles. I just think that he’s not evolving as fast as the game is anymore. And I think before, he was moving faster than the rest of the game and I don’t think that is the case anymore.”
Why Jon Jones did not fight his best is unknown, but Anthony Smith believes it is because opponents are figuring him out. Whether or not that is true is to be seen, but Santos no doubt surprised many.
