UFC 197: It’s Jon ‘Bones’ Jones, But Not As We Know It

Jon Jones was far from his best in this fight with Ovince St Preux, and for the first three rounds seemed content to fire off leg kicks and pot shots at St Preux’s body, seeming a little tentative coming forward. To his credit, St Preux was more than holding his own through the first three rounds and hit Jones with some huge shots that troubled the former champion, looking a lot better than expected – especially considering he took this fight on three weeks notice. The fourth and fifth rounds however, saw Jones unload a little more and land some huge takedowns on St Preux, following up with ground and pound and elbows in the clinch. It wasn’t a classic Jon Jones performance by any stretch of the imagination but it’s was great to see the ‘greatest of all time’ back in the octagon.

Demetrious Johnson took less than three minutes to finish Henry Cejudo with some beautiful Muay Thai technique in the clinch that stunned the former Olympian. Johnson followed up his attacks in the clinch with a huge knee to the body that dropped Cejudo, before following up shots to his curled up opponent, forcing the referee to stop the fight. Johnson was extremely impressive, leading Joe Rogan to declare Johnson the “best Pound for Pound fighter ever”, which we can all agree is ridiculous, right? Still a very, very good performance by the champion.

Edson Barboza continued his impressive run of form with a dominant win over former lightweight champion, Anthony Pettis. Barboza owed much of his success in the fight to brutal leg and body kicks that left Pettis looking like he’d been in a car wreck by the end of the fight. Throughout all three rounds, Pettis couldn’t find any rhythm with his striking and looked out of sorts. That’s not to take anything away from Barboza though, who put on a masterclass and added to the calls for him to get a title fight in the near future.

Robert Whittaker and Rafael Natal had an entertaining middleweight fight much to the surprise of anyone watching. The first round saw some wild exchanges between the two with Whittaker looking to have Natal’s number, rocking him several times throughout the round. The second round saw Natal target Whittakers left leg with some nasty leg kicks that had Whittaker limping to his corner at the end of the round. The third round saw Whittaker take the fight to Natal and with only one hand working, due to an injury sustained in the opening frame. Whittaker was able to hurt Natal throughout the final round and did enough to sway the decision in his favour, walking away with an impressive win.

After a first round in which Yair Rodriguez dominated Andre Fili both on the feet and in the grappling exchanges, the TUF Latin American winner added to his already sizeable hype train with a jumping head kick knockout midway through the second round. Rodriguez demonstrated a wild array of kicking skills throughout the fight, as well as some very good Jiu Jitsu, but the knockout of Fili was something special and will only fuel the hype behind the 23-year-old.