On Dana White, Jon Jones, the greatest of all-time and a history lesson on pound-for-pound

LAS VEGAS -- UFC president/CEO Dana White continued his long-running campaign advocating for Jon Jones as the pound-for-pound best MMA fighter in the world in the face of staunch opposition from fans and media on Tuesday following the Contender Series show at Apex.

Surreal is probably the best word to describe the debate that has raged the last four months in UFC circles: Is Jones, the UFC's heavyweight champion, the greatest active MMA fighter in the world?

There is widespread agreement, though not unanimity, on a related but vastly different question: 

Is Jones the greatest MMA fighter of all-time. There will be those who will argue for Georges St-Pierre, Anderson Silva, Fedor Emelianenko and even Demetrious Johnson. Each of those men had incredible careers and deserve the laurels they've received.

But there is no real debate on that point: Jones is the greatest MMA fighter who ever drew breath. Let's not kid ourselves. 

But at White's post-fight news conference at Apex Tuesday, there was a vigorous, and at times, funny, debate about whether Jones deserves to be regarded as the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world today.

Before I get into what was said Tuesday and why KevinIole.com has UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev as the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world, let's tour some MMA sites which keep pound-for-pound to see who they rank as the current men's pound-for-pound No. 1:

ESPN -- Makhachev

Fight Matrix -- Makhachev

KevinIole.com -- Makhachev

MMA Fighting -- Makhachev

MMA Junkie -- UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira

Sherdog -- Makhachev

Tapology -- Makhachev

UFC.com -- Makhachev

It all began Tuesday as White's news conference was seemingly winding down, when Alex Behunin of MMA Mania asked White if he considered Jones the greatest pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

Since UFC 300, White has been vociferously promoting Jones as both the greatest MMA fighter of all-time and the greatest active fighter. 

When it came up -- again -- on Tuesday, White went into his usual diatribe: It's not like I have a great relationship with Jon Jones. But he is an active fighter and he beat a series of greats. If you don't agree with that, you know nothing about MMA.

It was at that point that I asked him, "Does he have pictures of you?"

It was a joke, and a bad one at that, but the point that is incontrovertible is this: Jones is not active. As of Tuesday, when we had this debate again, Jones hadn't fought in one year, five months and 23 days. By the time he steps into the Octagon at Madison Square Garden in New York on Nov. 16 to fight Stipe Miocic, it will have been one year, eight months and 12 days since Jones last fought.

And if you want to go back further, since his last fight prior to defeating Ciryl Gane, it looks worse to call Jones active:

Form Feb. 9, 2020, the day after he defeated Dominic Reyes, until Nov. 16, the night he is scheduled to fight Miocic, it will have been one fight in four years, nine months and eight days.

Given that level of inactivity, it's not fair to allow Jones to remain on top of the pound-for-pound lists. 

Call him a legend. I'd agree.

Call him the greatest ever. I'd agree.

Call him a freak of nature, a modern marvel, a once-in-a-generation fighter. I'd agree.

White insisted he's an active fighter because he was scheduled to fight Miocic in Nov. 11, 2023, before he injured his shoulder. White said that Jones wanted to fight Miocic and Miocic only wanted to fight Jones. So when I suggested that White should have had Miocic fight either Tom Aspinall or Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 295 for an interim belt last year, he gave a long answer about why he couldn't do that.

“I have two legends of the sport who wanted to fight each other,” White said. “Those guys were lined up, and one guy gets hurt, and this is the fight that they both want. What do you do? You don’t show the guys the respect? I guarantee you this: If Stipe wins, Stipe is going to retire. This will be Stipe’s last fight. So are you, the media, telling me I should just tell Stipe to 'F*ck off? Good luck to you, Stipe. Go ride off into the sunset.Ggo fight some fires and that’s a wrap for you, buddy', because Jon got hurt. Or do I show this guy the respect that I should show him and give them both the fight that they want? That’s the position I’m in. 

“If Stipe was 32 years old, then yeah, [an interim title fight] is probably what we do. But this is probably Stipe’s last fight, win or lose, and I’m not going to disrespect the guy. He accepted the fight, he was ready for the fight, and Jon got injured.”

That's all well and good, but everyone has bad breaks, and injuries are part of the game. I hesitate to write this because it looks like I'm dumping on Miocic, but he doesn't deserve the title shot. He hasn't fought AT ALL since getting knocked out by Francis Ngannou at UFC 260 on March 27, 2021. He hasn't WON since defeating Daniel Cormier at UFC 252 on Aug. 15, 2020. And he's 2-2 in his last four.

If we are giving merit-based title shots, how does that record earn a shot at the championship?

While the pound-for-pound championship does not exist and it's only opinion, fighters are aware of it and many of them want to prove themselves. It's why Alex Volkanovski took a bout against Makhachev, the greatest fighter in the world, on just 11 days notice. He wanted to prove himself, so he took a calculated risk. He wasn't in the fighting condition he'd wanted to be in. He didn't have the time to work on a game plan and drill strategies. But he fought -- and lost -- because he wanted to take an opportunity that, if he were successful, would have made him No. 1.

Fighting every 20 months in Jones' case or ever 42 months in Miocic's case doesn't do that.

Makhachev fought Volkanovski twice, Charles Oliveira and Dustin Poirier. Volkanovski and Oliveira were both top five when Makhachev fought them and Volkanovski was first on some sites after their initial meeting. Poirier has long been a standard of excellence.