The Elephant in the Garden

As anyone who follows the fight game long enough knows, legacy can be a complicated word. Muhammad Ali was just shy of 37 years old, about eight months younger than Jon Jones is today, when he beat Leon Spinks to regain the heavyweight title and walk away from boxing. It was by no means the biggest challenge out there for him to rematch Spinks, who’d shockingly taken his heavyweight crown earlier that year in 1978, but it was the perfect swan song and a last chance to shake down his adoring public for one last supersized payday.

Of course, Ali didn’t stay retired. He came back and took drubbings at the hands of Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick in the saddest sporting events of the 20th century, all of which went into his legacy. It was such an outsized, audacious, beautifully principled, roundly criticized, at times extremely vulnerable, borderline sacrilegious, racially charged, highly politicized, and ultimately tragic legacy, that it stands today as a triumph of human spirit.

Ali is remembered as “The Greatest” that ever was. He might even be the very definition of what people mean by legacy, whenever they get to talking about it (which is all the time). He certainly understood the exhilaration that comes with risk and how to hitch an entire era to his personal navigation of it.

In that way, what Jon Jones is coming up against in his quest to be remembered as the greatest fighter MMA has ever seen is something more than Stipe Miocic. Because legacy encompasses so much more than wins and losses, though those are essential elements. In the case of Ali, he sought to captivate the imagination; he snatched his own asterisks and learned to juggle them spectacularly, just part of the show. Jones would rather not acknowledge the asterisks are there. And when people talk about unifying the heavyweight title against interim champ Tom Aspinall, which is thought to be one of the biggest fights of 2025, Jones — who is curating a story that’s perhaps out of step with the times — appears content to simply shut down that part of the imagination.

Like it or not, that, too, goes into legacy.

When you zoom back in to the here and now, that’s the tagline for UFC 309 that Jones has been running with: Legacy. The greatest heavyweight of all time (42-year-old Miocic) versus the greatest of all time (37-year-old Jones), meeting at Madison Square Garden, a venue that has a legacy of its own for big fights. The elephant in the room (31-year-old Aspinall) is like a great heavyweight pariah with his nose smudged up against the glass, snubbed from the old boy’s club, even if he has a belt wrapped around his waist.

For many, he has come to represent the “fears” of yesterday’s heroes.

Not that people would classify Jones a hero, exactly. In fact, to talk about Jones is to talk about somebody as complicated as the word legacy itself — a beleaguered fighter outside of the cage who has been stripped of his titles, suspended, and trotted out in orange jumpsuits for courtroom appearances for more than 16 years, yet who overcomes all of it within the confinement of eight walls. Whenever he takes off his shoes? Jonny Bones temporarily wipes away all sin.

Even then, some of his fights have been complicated. The “loss” to Matt Hamill after landing 12-to-6 elbows remains an unfortunate blemish. That one led Dana White to 86ing referee Steve Mazzagatti forever. The “no contest” after knocking out Daniel Cormier at UFC 214 for testing positive for a steroid? That branded Jones a cheater forever in the eyes of many. The close decision against Alexander Gustafsson? Made all the crazier that he could dig so deep when he was partying right up to the introductions. The generous decision he was gifted against Dominick Reyes at UFC 247? Hey, plenty of people at Madison Square Garden swear Ali lost to Doug Jones in ’63, too, but history remembers it the way history remembers it.

Part of a legacy involves luck. And perseverance. Both of which, if you’re trying to pinpoint Jones’ legacy as he flirts with walking away from fighting, there’s been a fair share.

“It’s been a testament to the vision that he’s made out for his own career and his own legacy,” his longtime coach Brandon Gibson says. “For him to be able to control that pace, too — he never got rushed into anything. Jon was always able to be the architect of his career and where he wanted to go. When he needed a couple years to bulk up for heavyweight, or even when he needed to transition to heavyweight? It was the right time. When we lined up rematches, they were the right time.”

Gibson, who is the zoo director at the Albuquerque BioPark by day — “my Clark Kent job,” he says — first met Jones right after UFC 100 in 2008, when Jones first came to New Mexico to train at Greg Jackson’s gym. Since then, he has watched every triumph, misstep, title defense, negotiation tactic, police cam, and bead of sweat that has ever formed on Jones’ brow with an unwavering sense of loyalty.

He has heard legacy talk for a long, long time, through Jones’ reign at light heavyweight, through his super slow, deliberate transition to heavyweight. And he is among the architects — along with Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn — who’ve helped build it.

“I think a big part of it too is how he’s been able to take care of his body,” he says. “Jon’s been able to take very limited damage during training camps and fights. We’ve really put an emphasis on that. We’re not in there sparring hard every day. It’s very technique-based, very strategized. I think that’s also contributed a lot to his staying power, and overall, his ability to continue to be ahead of this game in so many ways.”

The Miocic fight has clung stubbornly on the calendar for a full year, as it was supposed to have taken place last November at UFC 295. Jones was forced out of the bout with a pectoral tear, which led to the rise of Aspinall as the interim titleholder in his absence, and as a result, all the strongholds to concepts of legacy. His greatest cheerleader over this time has been none other than UFC CEO Dana White, who has argued about Jones’ status as the GOAT and pound-for-pound king to anyone who dares contend otherwise for the better part of the year.

In between there has been a prevailing notion among fans and media that speaks directly to just how complex these times are regarding the lineal heavyweight champ. While Aspinall is a legitimate threat — the kind of risk that hasn’t showed up much on Jones’ dance card throughout his career — it’s almost a foregone conclusion that Jones will beat Miocic.

“There may be some public consensus on that, but that’s not our feeling at all,” Gibson says. “We’ve been training our asses off for a year and a half, and we know what a great champion Stipe is. We know all of these incredible gifts that he brings, how resilient he is, how tough he is, and we're not taking anything for granted in this fight.”

For this camp, Jones and the team have relocated to the quiet of Jackson’s old gym on Acoma Road, where at one time they manufactured gold accessories. Jones has had his regulars there at his side, Gibson, Jackson and Winkeljohn, along with George Lockhart, and they brought in Olympic wrestling champion Gable Steveson, grappling guru Gordon Ryan and WBO interim heavyweight boxing champion Joseph Parker. A who’s who to deal with Miocic’s strengths.

Which is par for the course. Jones’s attention to detail has bordered on obsessive at times over the years. There’s always been a cerebral side to him that has gone largely unsung, the eternal student of fighting who beats people at their own games.

“That is 100% what I say about Jon every time I get a chance,” Gibson says. “People will bring up his range or his reach. To me, all of his physical abilities are second to his intellectual abilities. The reason Jon’s been able to be such a dominant champion for so many years is due to his ultra-high IQ for this game, his ability to make adaptations in fights, to make adjustments.”

This is where, if you want to restrict Jones’ legacy to his ability to win fights, he has left his mark on the game like nobody else. He’s the man who choked out Lyoto Machida and dropped his limp body on the cage wall. Who oblique kicked Rashad Evans, wrestled Quinton Jackson and treated the late Stephan Bonnar like a crash test dummy with suplexes and throws. He’s the guy who took the wrestler Vladimir Matyuskenko down and gave “The Janitor” a dose of his own medicine.

“For being an arrogant prick — and that’s what I thought of him, though I found out he’s actually not — he does his homework,” Matyushenko says 14 years later. “He doesn’t mind asking questions and he’s teachable. I really like that in fighters. That’s what makes him an artist; not just an athlete, but an artist.”

Dealing with that reach is a nightmare, too. With a highly publicized seven-foot wingspan that became the center of the UFC’s marketing campaign for his first fight with Gustafsson in Toronto, everyone knows they have to get inside on Jones to make it a fight. Almost nobody succeeds at it. Those who come closest, like Glover Teixeira did in Baltimore, find out there’s no pot of gold in the clinch, either. Even when Teixeira slipped within the tangle of limbs, he found himself being manhandled from inside.

“The hardest thing to deal with was that distance,” Teixeira says. “He’s always got a good distance, and he controls the distance so well. When you want to get close, he wants to be on the outside. It’s also his ability to read quick. I compare Alex [Pereira] to him a lot, because of Alex’s ability to quickly see something and he can switch the strategy. With Jon Jones, when we fought, it was the pressure that he brings and controlling the distance. He’s always in control of his fights, which is very frustrating.”

And the splayed fingers that Teixeira dealt with, just about every time he came in — that looked at times like Jones was blindly making his way through a blizzard? It still gives fighters like Dominick Reyes flashbacks.

“The most difficult thing was dealing with his reach and him constantly trying to eye poke me,” Reyes says. “Go back and watch the tape.”

A 6-foot-4, Jones is the creeping length of an afternoon shadow on the wall. The fingers are nightmares on their own, like the bayonets for those who charge, while the strafing from the outside is what makes him MMA’s greatest puzzle. That he can exploit weaknesses in his opponents is hardly fair, given all his physical advantages.

“Jon is the greatest student I've ever coached in this game,” Gibson says.

“He loves to break down film on himself, on opponents, on great fighters that we're not even competing against, that he’s inspired by.”

Inspiration has its own reach. For 16 years and 16 title fights, from being the youngest champion in UFC history to the most polarizing champion on the roster, from the DUIs and car crashes to helping stop a purse snatcher just hours before winning his first title in New Jersey, Jones has had reach. Should he beat Miocic on Saturday night, does that reach extend to future generations? Will people still be talking about Jones in 20 years? In 50 years?

And does leaving Aspinall at the altar take away all that’s been done, especially as he’s become the destination through which all roads now lead?

Greg Jackson used to say that the only person who can beat Jon Jones is Jon Jones. Whenever Jones gets in trouble, that quote comes immediately to mind. Yet in the rare instances he fights — and this will only be his third fight in five years — there’s a gravity of force that moves with him. A feeling of greatness that he has embodied, and only he seems to have full command of, an instinctual prowess that has made him to this point invincible to himself. We will feel it as he makes that walk again. The feeling that all these years later, even he hasn’t been able to beat Jon Jones.

Who knows, maybe Jones’ reluctance to acknowledge Aspinall as a desirable opponent is strategic, as his rival Daniel Cormier has suggested. Perhaps he is angling for a pay bump with the UFC, and negotiating in public is how he intends to go about it. But as we close in on his first heavyweight title defense, it is unfashionable to speak highly of Jones with the potential of such a big job left undone.

After all, what is legacy, other than what other people choose to remember? Why risk one’s legacy?

Because that risk, in which everything is there to lose, is perhaps the last thing missing from the UFC’s greatest body of work.