Mailbag: Predicting Jon Jones’ next move, plus what does it mean to beat a fighter clearly past their prime?

What does it mean to beat a fighter who’s clearly past his prime? What’s most likely to be next for Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall, together or separately? And what is even going on with the new/old UFC gloves?

All that and more in this week’s mailbag. To ask a question of your own, hit me at @benfowlkesmma or @benfowlkes.bsky.social.

That’s a good question — and a tough one. Feels like a little bit of a copout to say this, but I think it has to be a case-by-case kind of thing.

For instance, Michael Chandler still looked fast and dangerous and mostly like the fighter he was two or three or four years ago. Watching him in the cage, you didn’t get the sense that there was a big drop-off in ability due to age. Charles Oliveira just went out there and beat him (again).

Mike Tyson, on the other hand, looked about how you’d expect a nearly 60-year-old former professional boxer to look. He was in good shape, especially for his age, but his legs were shaky and he had no pop to his punches. Beating that version of Tyson doesn’t mean anything unless you are also closing in on that senior citizen discount.

Where it gets tricky is someone like Stipe Miocic. Did that look like prime Stipe in the cage at UFC 309? It did not. He was noticeably slower, though still as tough as ever. (Just surviving those elbows in the first round proved that much.) Jon Jones wanted to fight him mostly because of how that name would look on his record, but did he really beat the same Stipe that Francis Ngannou and Daniel Cormier did? I can’t quite bring myself to say yes. But then, since Jones looked great taking him apart (especially that spinning back kick at the finish), how much does it really matter? Like I said, tricky.

The thing about Jake Paul’s gimmick is that it only works if he finds some way to up the ante each time. He can do that either by facing better and scarier opponents or by finding more famous ones.

The good news is that, after that Tyson fight, there’s probably a strong public appetite for seeing Paul in any fight that would be clearly hazardous to his health. I’m not saying that means he should fight Ngannou next, and honestly anyone who’d book that fight should be brought up on charges. But I am saying it needs to be someone who seems likely do grievous bodily harm to him, otherwise it’ll be a struggle to get people interested en masse.

Here’s the thing: Jones is the UFC heavyweight champion. So no, he doesn’t get the luxury of fun fights against whoever just for the sake of staying active and giving us a show that won’t make us sad. The reason other fighters get that grace in their later years is because they aren’t champions by then. We’ve seen them lose, probably several times, and we’ve accepted that this is the best way to see them keep fighting without seeing them unnecessarily maimed.

But you don’t get to play in the seniors tour when you’re the best in the world. We expect you to keep putting that belt up for grabs against the next top contender for as long as you’re wearing it. Don’t want that responsibility? Fine, give the belt back. Jones has said he’s willing to do just that if it gets him Alex Pereira next instead of Tom Aspinall. But saying it and doing it are two different things.

It’s always a messy business trying to see into the future, especially when it concerns a man who might at any point reverse course or just get arrested.

But here’s my best guess: Jones goes home to bask in the glory for a while, telling UFC execs to call him when they’re ready to add some zeroes to his check in order to make that Aspinall fight. They don’t want to do that, not only because of the money but also because of the precedent it sets. They gradually increase the public pressure on Jones to give Aspinall his shot. Jones won’t budge, so they do Aspinall vs. TBD for the one true UFC heavyweight title.

Then maybe Jones gets to fight Pereira. Maybe he doesn’t. Either way, he hates sitting at home and watching everyone else be champs, so he eventually comes back and fights whoever holds the UFC heavyweight strap by then, whether it’s Aspinall or someone else. All of this takes place some time within 2025.

I don’t think I’ve ever picked against Jones in a fight. I don’t expect to start now.

I’m totally baffled by this long, tortured saga of the UFC gloves. Along with a bunch of other media members, I sat there in the UFC APEX this past April and listened to the detailed presentation, complete with a short film, all about the research and development of the new gloves. Then they got used for, what, five months? Now it’s back to the old gloves.

At this point I don’t even understand what we’re supposed to be hoping for. I seriously doubt that knockout rates would be drastically affected by the difference between the two, at least if both were used long enough to give us a decent sample size. One thing the new gloves definitely made no real attempt to address was the scourge of eye pokes. During that presentation in April, I was told that was never a priority when designing new gloves.

So what are we even doing here? Is it just about being able to say that there’s some ongoing innovation happening? Is it purely about selling new gloves in different colors? I don’t get it. It doesn’t seem like anyone at the UFC does either.