Many fans currently say Jon "Bones" Jones is thee pound for pound champ, now that Silva lost to Chris Weidman. I am not here to say that Jones isn't a great fighter because he clearly is a young phenomenon that has come to the UFC and devastated the light heavyweight division. What I am saying is that George St. Pierre has more of a deserving resume of a pound for pound champion.
When you look at notable wins Jones has some good ones under his belt. Jones top wins consist of Ryan Bader, Mauricio Rua, Quinton Jackson, Lyoto Machida, Rashad Evans, Vitor Belfort, and Chael Sonnen. Now, this is a good list of fight but lets take more of a look into these fights. Jon beat Ryan Bader in every dimension of the fight and just simple outclassed him. Bader did not seem ready for the fight with Jones and ended up losing in the 2nd round by guillotine choke. After that fight, Jones was given opportunity to fight for the UFC Light Heavyweight belt and he capitalized. He hit Shogun with early knee and from then on the whole fight was all Jon Jones. Jon ended up beating up a legend to many and winning by TKO in the 3rd round. His next fight was against Quinton Jackson, many thought Jackson would be a big test for Jones. Quinton said he trained the hardest he has ever trained for the fight but ended up getting man handled by the younger athlete. Jones ended up winning in the 4th round by rear naked choke. After the Rampage fight there was only a few fights that fans wanted to see, one was with Evans and the the other was with Machida. Machida ended up getting the fight. Machida did very well in the stand up and some watchers believe that Machida was even winning the stand up battle, but during a exchange Machida was caught with an elbow and Jones took over. Winning in the 2nd round by guillotine choke. After winning the fight Rashad Evans wanted a piece of his former training partner. There was a little bad blood between the two after Evans claims Jones said he would fight him (Evans) if he had too. Evans took Jones the distance but ended up losing by decision in the end. Jones next two fights were Vitor Belfort and Chael Sonnen. These two are both great fights but there both middleweights that moved up and got a title shot. Neither of these two deserved the title shot they got. They are both small for the division and would be beat by much of the top talent in light heavyweight. The two fighters probably also think the same, that is why Vitor moved back down to middleweight and Chael is planning to after his next fight with Shogun. Vitor actually almost beat Jones by arm bar and showed the world Jones weakness and broke a little of his aura.
Now lets take a look at GSP's most notable wins. George St Pierre has victories over Matt Hughes 2x, Sean Sherk, B.J. Penn 2x, Josh Koscheck 2x, Jon Fitch, Thiago Alves, Jake Shields, Carlos Condit, and Nick Diaz. Now if you look at these wins when GSP beat all of these people most of the were ranked in the Top 10 and most in the Top 5. He came into the division and took the crown from his old hero Matt Hughes. Who at the time dominated the welterweight division. In his first fight with Matt, GSP could barely look into Matt's face at the stare down. He ended up losing right before the bell rang in the first round by arm bar. After that loss GSP changed and gained a lot more confidence in himself. He ended up dominating his next 5 fights. These fight include the fighter Sean Sherk (who ended up moving down to lightweight after this fight) and B.J. Penn (Many think is a natural lightweight). GSP ended up beating up Sean Sherk pretty bad in the 2nd round by TKO, who was at the time 32-1-1. After that fight he fought BJ Penn and got pretty beat up in the first round. Many thought that Penn had the fight won but GSP ended up coming back and winning the next two rounds and surprised the crowd by winning a split decision. By winning this fight GSP was given a title shot and proved he deserved it. In the title fight Hughes was beat up from beginning to end and ended up losing by TKO in the second round. GSP ended the reign of Matt Hughes over the welterweight division that day and became welterweight champion for the first time. He ended up loses his next fight to Matt Serra by TKO in the first, but that was the last time GSP lost and that was in 2007. It is now 2013 and GSP has won his last 11 fights. At the time each of the 11 fighters were top 10 fighter and many were top 5. He gets much criticism for not finishing fights lately but he does dominate each of the 5
rounds he fights and there is no question by the fans who wins his fights even though he is not finishing them. There isn't ever a point in time anyone thinks GSP has a weak spot in his game, like they believe Jones may have a weak BJJ game.
After looking at both of the fighters records we can see that Jones has beat some good fighter with some big names but only 4 of these fights were actually even top 10 in his division when he beat them. He has a good story with his reign and beat some big name fighters but not all of them were even top 10 when they fought in his division. On the other hand, GSP has won 13 fights against top ten opponents. He gets less press around it because that is what people expect of him. They know he will win and they just take it for granted. He is expected to win by so many that after he wins and beats a person like Jake Shields on a 15 fight win streak, they consider Jake Shields a can, say he never deserved the fight, and say GSP never fights good competition. This is clearly not true and GSP is definitely deserving of the top spot as pound for pound king.
Anyone who can give you the belief that every fighter who fights him is undeserving and clears out a whole division numerous times is more deserving of the pound for pound king title. Not someone with only 4 top ten wins and who beats fighters from a lower division. Jones may at some point be the pound for pound king but he is going to have to wait his time just like GSP and wait for the new king to lose.
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