The UFC has booked argubaly the top fighter in the world to get a quick-turnaround bout, and I’ll offer my thoughts on this new matchup in the present MMA odds and ends.
Jon Jones vs. Anthony Smith, UFC 235 UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones will put his belt on the line against Anthony Smith in UFC 235, which takes place March 2 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. TMZ was the first to report on the bout, with UFC president Dana White affirming the news together. The holdup now is that Jones still wants to get his license in the Nevada State Athletic Commission, which should occur later this month later he has a hearing regarding his contentious failed drug test for picograms before UFC 232.
The information of Jones vs. Smith being reserved for UFC 235 came along with ESPN’s Ariel Helwani reporting that Kamaru Usman is set to combat UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley at UFC 235 in the co-main event. I wrote about that matchup in a week’s MMA odds and ends, which you may read here. The cole’s notes version of my ideas on this bout would be that Woodley deserves to become favored based on the fact he is the defending champion, but I give Usman a fantastic chance to win the title.
As far as Jones vs. Smith goes, it is clearly the ideal struggle to reserve and it’s good news the UFC is creating this fight instead of Jones contrary to Corey Anderson, that would not happen to be a competitive struggle. At least Smith has the finishing capability to make things interesting, though Jones will still enter this battle as a gigantic betting favorite due to his unbelievable album and how great he looked in his return bout against Alexander Gustafsson in UFC 232, which he won via third-round KO.
Jones (23-1, 1 NC) has an unbelievable 17-1, 1 NC album from the Octagon which includes win over Daniel Cormier, Gustafsson twice, Lyoto Machida, Rashad Evans, Mauricio »Shogun » Rua, Chael Sonnen and Vitor Belfort. By all accounts, he’s among the greatest resumes we’ve ever seen in the sport and he has appeared pretty much unstoppable in his MMA career save to get a very controversial DQ defeat to Matt Hamill nearly a decade ago now in December 2009. Smith (31-13) is among the most-improved fighters in the UFC. After racking up a 4-3 record as a middleweight during two separate stints at the UFC, Smith has burst into stardom as a light heavyweight since moving up a weight class in the middle of 2018. He has defeated Shogun, Evans and in his very last conclusion Volkan Oezdemir all by end, earning a title shot because of his unbelievable run at 205lbs.
As great as Smith has looked at light heavyweight, it’s still impossible to prefer him to conquer Jones, who has revealed very few flaws in his game since making his UFC debut over a decade ago. I would look for Jones to be around a -500 favored for this fight, and considering Smith has been finished 14 times in his career there is a fantastic chance Jones stops him in this fight.
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