Prior to every UFC fight card, Jay Primetown of MMAOddsBreaker.com takes a peek at some of the essential competitions at every event. In the latest installment, we look at UFC 214’s blockbuster main event as Jon Jones returns to the Octagon to face Daniel Cormier at a bitter grudge match for the light heavyweight championship.
Daniel Cormier (Record: 19-1, +235 Underdog, Power Ranking: A+)
The 38-year-old Olympic wrestler turned MMA fighter has become among the best light heavyweights of all time. Of his 20 bouts, the only time he watched defeat was to Jones in the first meeting. Since that setback in 2015, Cormier has won four consecutive bouts, with successes over Alexander Gustafsson, Anthony Johnson (double ) and Anderson Silva.
Being undersized has never been a problem for Cormier in MMA. He really made a name for himself Strikeforce, beating the likes of Josh Barnett and Antonio Silva are the last heavyweight champion in the business before it was obtained by the UFC. Once from the UFC, Cormier quickly transitioned to light and has come to be a Hall of Fame-caliber fighter. Despite being under six feet tall with merely a 72.5-inch reach, Cormier has seldom had an issue with competitions even giving up to a foot in reach and six inches in height.
Cormier is extremely powerful. He lands 3.78 significant strikes per minute despite absorbing only 2.07. He secures almost two takedowns per 15 minutes from the cage with an astonishing 42 percent achievement rate on takedowns. Cormier has very good footwork for the weight class and does nicely to close distance and force opponents to fight at close selection. He does not possess the knockout power to put quality opponents away early, but he has a very good chin, forcing opponents into a physical, energy draining bout. He is shown to be one of the most difficult fighters to deal with in a cage over 25 minutes.
Jon Jones (Record: 22-1, -255 Favorite, Power Ranking: A++)
The 30-year-old Endicott, New York native is one of the best mixed martial artists of all all-time. Back in 23 fights, his hand has been raised in all but one of these games. The lone time it wasn’t raised was due to a disqualification in a fight he was winning . Jones returns to action for the first time as an April 2016 decision win over Ovince Saint Preux, This battle will truly clean out any relevant contenders in his weight class.
The Jackson’s MMA merchandise is the top fighter in the world for a lot of reasons. To begin, physically he’s very gifted in that his 84.5-inch hit is right near the top of the sport. Jones uses his length very nicely, as he lands a whopping 2.25 more important strikes a second than he consumes. That places him right near the top of the UFC in that category as well. He combines that with 94 percent takedown defense, making him hard to strike and hard to take into the mat.
Jones unites that defensive prowess with a creative striking game using a lot of unorthodox kicks. On the ground, Jones has as barbarous of ground-and-pound as anybody in MMA. He delivers vicious elbows in prime controller and is capable of completing in any fight from that position. Jones has spent a lot of time around the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu mats in his time away from MMA and it’s certainly possible he integrates a considerable submission grappling attention to his MMA prowess.
Matchup
At the most anticipated MMA bout of 2017, the former winner Jones returns to recover his light heavyweight championship against the current champ Cormier. Within their first bout, the fight was fairly even after two rounds, but Jones’ body work actually started to pay dividends in the third round, as he actually began to out-land Cormier to acquire a decision. Furthermore, Jones even out-grappled Cormier, procuring three takedowns when compared with this one that his opponent had in the bout.
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