jon jones thiago santos tale of the tape

The first round was primarily a battle of leg kicks and it was Santos who drew the first roar from the crowd with a wicked kick to Jones’ calf that had Jones dancing for a second.Jones caught a Santos kick, but couldn’t get a takedown or connect with a spinning back elbow on the follow-up. Here are the significant strike numbers:This isn’t to say that Santos should be penalized for inaccuracy, just that he may not have been as successful with some of his flurries as it appeared at first glance. Jon Jones coach Brandon Gibson breaks down the fight against Thiago Santos and admits he was surprised that the bout ended in a split decision. Suddenly, we have the makings of a live dog. I’ve written about crime, technology, fitness, and entertainment for a variety of outlets. By the way, credit to Dr. A draw result was hardly considered as it garnered only 2.4 percent of the vote.Over at Verdict MMA, voters leaned the opposite way, giving Jones the last four rounds, including huge marks in the third and fourth.The Global Scorecard results for this fight are very interesting.The Verdict MMA scoring system takes the cumulative total of every submitted fan score (filtering out aberrant scores like random 10-7s if they comprise less than one percent of the total) in every round and divides by the amount of submitted scores to determine the winner of each round and also in totality.Jones’ final margin of victory was 133 points. He ended up with a 16-7 advantage in that department, and also had the slight edge in head strikes (11-9) and leg strikes (32-27).There were no takedowns or knockdowns (including Jones’ counter elbow in round two that tripped up an off-balance Santos) in the fight.Four people gave the fight to Jones 49-46, while the biggest deviation came from MMA Junkie, who gave all five rounds (50-45) to the champion.Voters on MMA Decisions know what they saw and that’s a win for Santos. Jones had zero sympathy for Santos’ injuries as he continued to rifle kicks into Santos’ body and legs, including the dreaded oblique kick. Santos supporters would have you believe that Jones was absolutely handled in the striking department here, a suggestion that doesn’t stand up to the slightest level of scrutiny.That said, Santos won round one. I favored the defensive skills of Jones, which became more prominent as the fight progressed even as Santos kept searching for new ways to attack. He won the first minute of round five, but could he sustain it? (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images) After round one, which Santos won 11-7, Jones had the striking advantage in every round (R2: 11-7, R3: 14-6, R4: 11-8, R5: 16-11).

“I don’t think I even attempted to shoot on him and I’m curious what would happen if I did shoot on him the next time.”Despite the split decision, Jones was happy with the outcome of his UFC 239 title defense and said he will use the fight to push himself going forward. Jon Jones won his first split decision as a member of the UFC roster in the main event of Saturday's UFC 239 pay-per-view card. I make my home in Baltimore, MD.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. “I think I can be honest enough to say that.

Call it Jones being a slow starter or just wary of an opponent with one-strike KO potential, but Jones seemed hesitant to take risks. Not only that, he was springing forward with punching combinations that weren’t 100 percent successful, but still enough to give Jones pause.

Jones walked the challenger down and though his output wasn’t extraordinary, it was consistent. “I was just extremely grateful honestly to have a fight like that. Thiago Santos via split decision.

I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of having to take him down. He was visibly hurt. Santos was unquestionably the busier fighter, but Jones was more effective. It’s here that we need to mention the usual disclaimer that not all significant strikes are created equal and it’s certainly possible that Santos was landing the more damaging strikes even if he was connecting less frequently.One aspect of the fight that may have been overlooked is Jones’ body work. He won the crowd over and if it were up to them, we would have heard “and new” at night’s end. An undersized challenger with a fan-friendly style, seeing Santos stand toe-to-toe with Jones was genuinely exciting. His performance in rounds three and four more than made up for the close second and fifth rounds, while Santos’ 46-point win in round one wasn’t enough to close the gap.