I’m a big believer in that to be the champ you have to beat the champ. When things are close and they side with the champ I think… Okay. That seems fair. Did Gus win his fight with Jones. Kind of… yeah, I guess and maybe not.
Did Gus win it enough to make me think, yeah, he should get that belt and that verdict was a robbery and I can’t believe this, this fight must have been fixed!
No. I don’t think so. Did Jones fight Shogun with the, to be the champ you have to beat the champ mentality. Yes. And, it showed.
Now we are waiting to see what happens in the light heavy weight division that is now a completely interesting mess. Before, the UFC clearly had a number 1 guy that seems more people disliked than liked (not sure why so many people dislike the guy, write comments on that please). You had a champion and no one could beat him. In the last week or so, there is now, no champion, there is a lot of guys who can beat each other on any given day and there is the thought in the back of everyone’s mind that one of three things may happen. Jones will take a year off, eat a bunch of cheeseburgers and come back and never be the same again (like Ali after he was stripped of his title, he was never the same) OR… Will Jones go absolutely crazy and go back to being the fighter he was when he was the hungry destroyer that had something to prove. OR will he just never come back. There is always the thought if he does go back to being a killing machine, will it matter who wins tonight? Is the winner tonight the champion or are they just a person keeping the throne warm for the 205-pound king?
And then there is Gus. And, what the hell happened to Gus? Gus made things messier than anyone else. Maybe he watched his fight with Jones to many times and obsessed with just how close he got, maybe it went to his head. Who knows, but the Gus that showed up to fight Johnson was not the Gus that showed up to fight Jones. The Gus who showed up to fight Jones had something to prove, he was a hard working guy who believed in himself and was out to make other people believe. And in a twenty-five minute fight he made a lot of fans and won a lot of hearts. He proved to everyone, he belonged in that cage. He showed us that Jones wasn’t superman and that Gus was the one to beat him.
The Gus that came to fight Johnson came in looking as if, this was a waste of his time, that he should be fighting for the belt, that he already beat the champ once, let him show up, beat this guy with ease and then get that fight with Jones again because everyone thinks he won anyway. And then a few minutes in and one lazy kick thrown and suddenly KERSPLATT.
Reality can be a fickle mistress. Sometimes, the bad things we are constantly looking out for, someone robbing us with a pair of child proof scissors, someone breaking into our homes and pissing in our sock drawer, getting sick with chicken pox or the black plague coming back. Sometimes we spend so much time looking out for the things that we think might happen, that we show up for work and are blind sided by something we never saw coming or that completely forgot was possible. When you’re Gus and you throw a lazy kick on a fight you thought was a waste of your time, BLAMO. Bad day at work comrade Sweden. But to make matters worse, instead of saying, I got sloppy, it will never happen, I am fighting tomorrow if possible, things seem to get bitter afterwards, to have a coach say it may have been God’s intent, or that 9/10 times that wouldn’t happen he would crush Johnson. First, I’m happy people thank God that no one got hurt and such. I believe intensely in God, but I think God is more concerned with nonviolence than he is with whom wins a fistfight on a Saturday night. And if this were a fistfight to the death, there is no 9/10 times. There is the one time. And, no more times after that ever again. Luckily were not gladiators but they market it as such so let’s go with that mentality.
So, Gus messed up our situation more, because now we do have to wonder, was that fight just a bad night and someone capitalizing on a sloppy mistake or is Gus on the way out. Is Daniel mentally ready to fight again and did he have enough time to prepare. Of everyone Johnson is currently in the best spot mentally because the hype was behind him and he was already training to fight and the champ for the belt. And finally there is Jones. Where the hell does that guy fit in? Is he going to fight in a week, a month, a year, ever again? He’s already in the gym but is it because he doesn’t know what else to do with himself and his wife said I’ll punch you in the throat if you go anywhere other than the gym? Is he going to eat cheeseburgers and come back as an ultra heavyweight and fight Fedor who is also making a return to the ring to fight for his brothers’ freedom? Is Jones going to come back as the toughest man on the planet or not at all?
While this is a fun time because there is so much that can happen and some many directions it can go and the belt can change hands with each fight and people like when things are mixed up, does it matter? Am I the only one who wants the belt to be won in a fight with the champ and by beating the champ and not the champ losing a fight in a courtroom for showing a lack of character and being a complete idiot? So we’re all left to wonder, if the current champ could actually beat the Champ. This isn’t one of those what if’s arguments. Where we have to say… Hey, do you think a Prime Jones could beat a Prime Liddell?
This is not the same, because we actually have a prime champion who is or should be perfectly capable of showing up coked out of his mind and fighting other fighters in their prime and still winning. If Daniel wins, so what, Jones beat him strung out somewhere around last week. If Johnson wins, sweet, people thought he might beat Jones but no one is actually sure because they never fought and even if they fight in 6 months and Jones loses people will always have the excuse that he’s not the same. I stand in my belief, to be the champ, you have to beat the champ.
Before I stop writing I should say. GSP did the same thing to the Welterweights.
