Is it time to bring in a monster for the Octagon who can finally ground this lack of real power?

You lot really believe Bellator’s suddenly handing over their draft pick like it’s a charity bin at the local gym.

Bellator’s gonna chuck a 6'4'' brick into the mix and you clowns still doubting?! 😤🔥 His college highlights read like a highlight tape from the ‘08 UFC intro—relentless double-legs, gas tank lasts three rounds plus overtime! One step in that cage and the league’s gotta know we’re done messin’ about ah well, nowt to do

That 6'4'' NCAA champ's tape is undeniable—until you clock the age column. At 31 with a decade of mileage on that frame, the kid they're hyping from Bellator already ran his leg days in college. Frame-wise he's an absolute unit, but we've seen this script before: Gable Steveson was never the same after Tokyo and he was 26. Weight’s another red flag—235 lbs at 6'4'' isn’t heavyweight, yet it’s not quite the traditional LHW where Jones carved his name. College wrestling plus two-year Bellator run doesn’t magically forge an elite MMA cardio engine. If we’re banking on raw power to plug Jones’ size gap, that gas tank hitting empty in round two tells me we’re still shopping in the same dodgy clearance aisle.

that 31-year-old brick with mileage is exactly the kind of project jones used to adore before the octagon got so squeamish. remember andrei orlovs? 32 when he walked into ufc, already two knee surgeries behind him, barely wrestled since high school. dude hung 6'5'' heavyweight frames off their necks for a round and a half before they even blinked. his cardio wasn’t olympic-grade—it was *courage* grade. jones eyeballed that tape and saw potential; he didn’t wait for the actuarial table to flip. we all howled when orlovs got cracked mid-pivot in round three but that doesn’t erase the fact he pushed a champ to the brink on pure stubbornness and timing. sure, orlovs had power then—jones can manufacture power out of thin air with that reach—but if this new lad can hold position inside the pocket for even half of what orlovs did? jones won’t be side-stepping anything, he’ll be digging for an answer. bellator’s farm system breeds fighters who know how to sell a ticket by week two of camp—not gold-medalists in pristine condition. jones thrives on imperfection ah well, we'll see

Yesterday I watched that Bellator NCAA champ dismantle a 240-pounder on YouTube—man’s got a double-leg off a sprawl like he’s teaching a masterclass for once.

You still gonna whine about mileage when that Bellator kid outmuscled a 240-pounder like it was a blue belt at Regionals? I remember watching Jones dismantle an aging Sonnen in round five—thought my eyes were going. This lad’s got the same relentless base, but the question isn’t “can he gas,” it’s “can he keep Jones against the cage long enough to even use it?” Jones doesn’t just side-step—he’ll lasso an ankle and drag you into deep water where his reach becomes a fishing rod. Unless this kid’s got the gumption of an Orlovs and half the creativity to improvise, he’ll be staring up at a heel hook before he’s taken three steps.

Bellator’s dumping a battleship in our court and some clowns still see a hole in the hull 😤 hey AllInFooty_Zone, frame don’t mean cookie-cutter—Orlovs wasn’t built to run laps, he was built to crash parties and leave with trophies 💀 31 legs? nah mate, that kid’s got a gas pedal *because* Bellator rides the gas instead of tapering for shiny endorsements, they sell blood, sweat and three-round wars so by fight week he’ll be running on fumes from two five-round wars, that’s real MMA cardio right there 🔥 plus he’s dropping 240s in sparring like it’s light day—Jones’ reach won’t matter when the double-legs start flying off every single clash of hands, this ain’t about stamina, it’s about who caves first under the volume 🙌 give him 30 seconds against Jones and suddenly the cage’s a wrestling room again, and we all know how that story ends 😈

So they’re already measuring the kid’s reach with a ruler and calling it done, eh? CagesideHQ, you watched one YouTube highlight reel—where’s the counter in that tape against someone who can actually backstep? A double-leg off a sprawl is nice until the guy steps out wide, plants, and lets the kid’s momentum carry him into the fence Jones hasn’t even hit yet. I’ve seen that same high school chain wrestling against future NCAA champs; by round two the tempo drops to a slow jog while the pace setter keeps circling like a shark. Danny_Corner, Orlovs was courage wrapped in surgical steel—true—but he also had 6'5" frames to sink his hooks into. At 6'4" and 235 this kid doesn’t automatically get the same leverage buffer; Jones’ 84½-inch wingspan turns any takedown attempt into a game of inches where the cage is your opponent and Jones owns the fencing. And sure, Jones adored projects pre-hip surgery, but every single one had one trait in common: a proven gas tank on the mat against top-tier wrestlers. This lad’s college mileage came from draining five high-school linebackers every weekend—not the kind of volume that translates when the referee’s whistle shuts the cage instead of the school bell. AllInFooty_Zone, I could be wrong, but weight class creep matters more than you’re letting on. Jones carved his name at LHW because the frame-to-weight curve worked in his favour; add another eight pounds at the same height and suddenly you’re trying to anchor a super-middleweight-sized leverage deficit against the man who built a gymnastics floor routine around long-limbed guard retention. The kid’s double-legs are classroom perfect—until Jones pummels him to the fence, hikes his hips, and the “monster” discovers gravity now has a bank loan on his lungs. Diehard4Life, two five-round wars in camp sounds heroic until the fight starts and Jones walks straight through the flurries like it’s pad work. Bellator’s gas pedal doesn’t matter when the first fifteen minutes teach the kid that Jones isn’t sprinting—he’s pacing with a calculator. You want volume? Fine. But volume without positional control is just cardio suicide; we’ve seen this movie with Fitch, we’ve seen it with Bader, we’ve even seen it with Santos—and the credits rolled each time with Jones tapping his wristwatch at the exact moment the challenger ran dry. Let them bring the brick—preferably wrapped in bubble wrap. Jones has already solved worse blueprints with nothing but a clipboard and a crooked stance.

Hold your breath and pray for rain, lads—Jones has already lost more rounds in training than this Bellator brick has had hot dinners, and that still didn’t stop the judges from calling him champ.

you remember how that whole big build-up around andrey alekseev turned out? 6'5", supposedly some kind of eastern european brick god who’d solve jones’ reach forever. bellator sent him out looking like a man who’d never heard of oxygen. remember the stare-down at weigh-ins? dead man walking eyes. then he stepped in, tried to out-wrestle jones with textbook double-legs and got caught in the first minute, dragged up the cage, arm-triangled before the crowd even settled in their seats. the hype was louder than his gas tank. now every time someone says “monster at 240” we all just smirk and point at that photo of alekseev checking the scorecards while jones walks away clean. sometimes the universe hands you a project on a silver platter and all you gotta do is not shit the bed—then reality elbows you in the ribs instead.