Jon Jones: Tito Ortiz possibly could have beaten me in his prime

That's very nice of Jones to say, but he would beat any version of Tito 99 times out of 100.



I don't think the Tito that lost 7 of his last 9 fights was any worse than the Tito that won 6 straight title fights. He may have been a little less explosive later in his career, but he improved his striking and BJJ. I just think the competition got that much better.

Oh, no - but you getting confused. Jon was reffering back in 2001 when he was 14 years old :P

Fully agree and never thought Tito was anything special because of that. He ruled the ufc when it was lacking in talent and on top of that Im not a huge fan of wrestlers that love holding guys on the ground. Wish more could be like Chuck.

Undefeated machida in his prime UFC 98 would have Ko'ed jones because before the shogun fight ,ppl didnt know how to deal with his karate style and before the 1st shogun fight ,Lyoto was aso undefeated and a lot more confident

Jones fought Machida completely differently from Shogun so it didn't matter that Shogun was the first guy to beat him.

I'd have to agree with you Mousasi. That reach has proved a tough nut to crack.



I see only two solutions: The Machida Solution, (i.e. to dance in and out) - Tito didn't have that... or



The "Randy Couture" solution - (i.e. to get inside and stay inside with either striking or wrestling). I don't think Tito had the take down ability to handle Jones nor the Greco Roman wrestling to keep him on the fence.

Prime Tito has an actual gas tank, and good wrestling. Straight BJJ Tito is still better than Jones. Obviously now there is no chance for Tito, but back in the day he defiantly had a "chance", not a good one, but a lot more substantial.

Yep, people forget that Tito used to be known for amazing conditioning (for a big guy). His injuries stacked up, then add that in with continual increase in weight cutting and he was just falling off more and more as the years went by.



He was exposed by people with better wrestling (Liddell and Couture), but he was still the best in the world at one point.



That being said I don't think he ever comes close to Jones. Jones is the best LHW we've seen.

Lidell at his prime would have KO'd Jones

I'm a big Chuck Liddell fan, but you can easily make the case that he was never truly the #1 LHW in the world. Rampage Jackson beat him shortly before he won his UFC title in Pride, and then took his title from him several years later...and Rampage was not even the Pride Champion.



During the period between those two fights, Rampage was unable to win the Pride title thanks to two gentlemen named Shogun and Wanderlei. Now, I know MMA math doesn't work, and it may be that Shogun and Wandy just had Rampage's number on those nights, and Rampage had Chuck's, but it's tough to say Liddell was clearly the #1 LHW in the world, even in his prime. As great as he was, it would have been very tough for him to win that Pride title.



You can't say that about Jones right now. He's clearly #1, and if Hendo doesn't beat him he will have wins against the entire rest of the top 5 at 205.

Every legit ranking site had W Silva as the #1 LHW in the world during those times.

I agree on the Chuck analysis. But Chuck also has great counter punching. There is an argument for Chuck have a chance to beat jones if he could prevent the wrestling, which he is very successful at. Styles makes fights, I think Chuck had a style that matched up well against JJ.

Until Chuck past him up after beating COuture.

Go to heavyweight, son. Hendo was a welterweight at one point.

ppl dont seem to simply realise that fighters in todays era are just more complete,well rounded evolved fighters any champ from todays era would beat the previous ones.

Jones obviously paying respects to one of the founders of the sport but realistically I would put Jones beating prime Tito odds at 1/10.



In no way was the prime Tito better than anything Jones does.