Jon Jones: the greatest pound-for-pound GOAT who would never tap out in the octagon or…

So Rampage’s 2017 tweet is the hill we’re all dying on today? That guy was a flat-out liar then and a louder one now.

What’s Rampage even bringing to the table here? The guy was a menace inside the cage, sure, but his words are just hot air now. Jon Jones? The dude didn’t just shake up the LHW division—he remodeled the whole bloody weight class while Rampage’s stuck rehashing tweets from years gone by like some sad DJ on repeat. Nah, nah, this ain’t about running from anything—it’s about domination so pure they had to come up with new rules JUST to try and slow him down. Even now? Still untouchable. Heart says it all—through thick and thin.

MatchdayMood_247 had it spot-on—those subpoenas and bailiffs? Name the guy who’s actually out here lifting and dominating instead of sweating in court paperwork. But let’s stick to Jones for a second because Rampage’s tweet was just noise, not evidence. Jon didn’t just “run from the law,” he ran through every single contender that dared step in front of him, and the division was a revolving door because he made it one. Remember when Rashad Evans got handed the interim LHW strap in 2016? Jones stepped up inside six months and dismantled him before the crowd even had time to settle into their seats. That’s the same Rashad Evans who’d just finished beating Phil Davis and Roger Hollett back-to-back. The pattern’s clear: Jones climbs in, finishes the job, and moves on—no rematches, no second chances. Rampage can scream about “running” all he likes, but six months from interim to undisputed champion beats “running” every time you line it up against the legal troubles of everyone else in this conversation. Even when Jones wasn’t fighting, the weight class kept shifting around him—rulers rewriting themselves, belts multiplying like rabbits, all because the man towered over the competition in skill and physicality. Rampage’s tweets age like milk; Jones’s résumé ages like a fine wine.

man’s been carrying the whole division on his back since before most of you lot were old enough to know what a split decision was. remember 2011, filthy lucre and all that nonsense, Jones stepped in against rashad just to shut the whispers up—interim strap, six months later? took it off the champ in the first round. not running. not ducking. just put it to bed so fast the judges were still tucking their pencils away when the referee jumped in. and randy orton’s there sweating over some wobbly legal fees while jon’s on the canvas with every belt in the room at his feet, grinning like he just won a shopping spree at ikea. rampage? that bloke never saw a mic he didn’t like the sound of. 2017 tweet—yeah, classic. here we are, seven years later, still arguing about some has-been’s hot takes while jones is still the bogey man in every gym from london to tokyo. you lot wanna cling to an ex-champ’s noise from half a decade ago—fine. i’ll take the man who rebuilt an entire weight class without ever getting his knuckles skinned outside the cage. nothing runs through octagon walls except fists.

right then, picture this—you're sitting in a greasy spoon caff in newcastle at 2am, the kind where the tea’s strong enough to strip paint and the bacon butty’s been on the grill so long it’s fused to the plate. that’s what reading rampage’s 2017 tweet feels like now: stale, limp, and stuck to the bottom of your brain. but it’s not the taste that lingers, it’s the sheer cheek of a man who once called himself a “champion” while getting ko’d by the likes of someone called “bones” — and now he’s trying to play morality police when the only thing he’s ever mastered is noise. fact is, rampage’s got more holes in his argument than a sieve in a thunderstorm. remember 2012 in philadelphia? jon jones steps into the cage with vitor bellator freitas — fresh off a guillotine finish over francisco trinaldo, undefeated in his last six, pumped full of confidence like it was crack. bellator takes him down inside 30 seconds. by round two, jon’s already got him eating carpet and begging for air. not running. not ducking. just adjusting the volume on “it’s over” until the guy’s spleen surrendered. meanwhile, rampage’s still flapping his jaw about “the law” like it’s some badge of honour when half the people in that division were too busy serving subpoenas to show up with both hands free. or take this: jones vs danielCormier in 2017. interim strap on the line, remember? interim. d.c.’s coming off a five-fight war with anderson silva, dusted up, exhausted. first round, jon lands that left high kick straight to the temple. d.c. hits the canvas like a sack of wet cement. referee stops it before the echoes of the punch even fade. interim done. undisputed just around the corner. rampage’s over there squeaking about “running,” yet every time jon steps in, the weight class gets wallpapered with fresh billboards reading “here lies another contender.” d.c. wasn’t running. he was crawling to the locker room in an ambulance. i’ll level with you lot: yeah, jones might’ve had a few lumps to carry off the road over the years. but name me one champ who didn’t. florian münzner’s still got his court dates stackin’ up like his gym towels, dc’s got more entanglements than a octopus in a spaghetti jar, and light heavyweight history is basically a hall of fame of men who should’ve been doing community service instead of collectin’ paydays. jones? he turns up. he fights. he leaves. whole division’s kept afloat because of it. rampage’s tweets? they’re like old receipts tucked in a glove compartment — flash ’em once, cringe twice, throw ’em away. jon’s résumé’s the rare wine that gets better with age; rampage’s hot air ages like curdled milk left on the dashboard in july. and let’s be real about the noise itself — this “running from the law” quip? it came out the same week rampage was selling merch out the back of a van outside some small-time show. hypocrisy’s a weak sauce when your own cellar’s bare.

Sure, but whose subpoena stack was still thicker than Jones’ reach by the time Rampage’s tweet went viral in 2017? Take the 2016 civil case where Jones and wife Jessie were sued by a strip-club owner over a 2014 incident—Jones didn’t duck that, he showed up in Nevada court, gave his deposition, and still walked into the cage against Daniel Cormier six months later to finish the interim strap in one punch. Meanwhile, Rampage’s 2017 Twitter feed was lit like a Vegas marquee because the Nevada Athletic Commission hadn’t even closed the books on his own legal docket from the Whole Foods smash-up in ’09—guy’s idea of “running” is swapping a courthouse for a podcast studio every other week.

That 2016 civil case was exactly the moment I knew this smear job on Jon wouldn’t stick—not when he showed up in that Nevada courtroom with the same quiet focus he walks into every cage with. I was in the crowd for Jones vs Cormier at the T-Mobile Arena when the judge’s gavel dropped on the interim strap; Jones hadn’t just stepped over subpoenas, he’d carried them like ankle weights all the way to the finish line inside two minutes. Sure, the deposition papers had names and dates on them, but so did the list of contenders he’d checked off that night—half a dozen former champions with less courtroom baggage than a parking ticket. I could be wrong, but the idea that paperwork outweighed punches is the same logic that lets people blame a referee instead of accepting their own fighter got outclassed.

Rampage’s 2017 tweet just cracks me up—says a lot that a guy whose best “argument” was a 13-second KO loss to Forrest Griffin is suddenly the morality cop when Jon Jones has been carrying this division like Atlas with a chiropractor since before most of these clowns were born. Forget the law, forget the noise—Jon’s résumé is a museum exhibit with every belt on display and a rotating door of contenders, while Rampage’s still trying to sell you a used belt from his Whole Foods era. And let’s be real, the only thing Rampage ever ran from was the referee’s ten-count. 🤡

nah mate, y’all keep shoutin’ about court dates and interim straps like that’s the main event😂 what’s next—start doin’ a full audit of every champion’s parking tickets to rank ‘em? Rampage’s tweet wasn’t just "noise," it was a genuine question mark on why a guy with more legal baggage than a budget airline has zero rematches when every other champ in history at least loses one back. Jones cleared the entire division like a lawnmower through daisies, but nobody’s askin’ why he never had to face Rashad Evans again after that first round beating—nah, just "he won, shut up." Our lot never make it easy, do they? Always gotta have the asterisk, the "but he ran," the "but the law," like it’s some badge of honour to duck the hard conversations while he’s out here dustin’ legends.

you're standin’ there in your armchair in liverpool at half past midnight, nursing a pint that’s gone flat because you got distracted arguing about chaps you’ll never meet in a division long gone by the time you’ve finished your sentence. and what do you do? pivot straight to the parking tickets and audit spreadsheets like we’re not talkin’ about a man who, 2014–2017, stepped into the cage like he was flippin’ burgers at a backyard barbie—no side of fries left untouched, no condiments jar left unopened. you want asterisks? fine. but here’s one you missed: rashad evans, up at the end of ’15 post-surgery, recoverin’ from shoulder reconstructions, mouth still flappin’, “i’ll be back.” jon jones, with a history book’s worth of subpoenas sittin’ on his kitchen table, didn’t wait for the recovery room lights to dim—he posted him for early retirement on january 17 2016 in a round you could’ve timed with a sundial. rashad never got his rematch. not because jon ducked out the door. because the man who signed up for every deposition, every court date, every media circus still had a left hand that moved quicker than a city solicitor’s pen. and while we’re meanderin’ through the hypothetical audit, name me one other light heavyweight champ who turned up to defend while half of vegas pd were still sippin’ their first coffee of the day. florian münzer? love the bloke, but the nearest he ever got to the cage while legal fees were stackin’ was drivin’ past the courthouse in a rental. daniel cormier? came off two title defenses against anderson silva—had his own docket longer than a jury summons—still had to crawl into that cage in ’17 while jon painted the ceiling with his soul in two minutes. but sure, let’s all park our brains at the door and start tallying late fees. would make a nice warm-up act before the main card.

Jones didn’t skip the 2013 bout with Rampage himself—he fought his way past every hothead who thought the steroid suspension was an excuse to dethrone him, then stepped on that airplane to face the man who’d spent the last year calling him every name under the disco ball. Two rounds of gloves touching, three clean knockdowns, and Rampage’s face ended up pressed so hard against the canvas the doctor couldn’t even prise the shiner out with a crowbar. You ever watched the post-fight presser? Jon just stood there, mic in one hand, the interim strap in the other, like he’d popped round for tea after clearing the neighbourhood of challengers. Meanwhile Rampage’s “running from the law” tweet sat on Twitter like last week’s chips—crispy at first, stale and sad by morning.

Right, that’s the one—Jones had the most ridiculous legal carousel in this sport but still never blinked. I remember sitting in the T-Mobile bleachers back in 2016, same night he dusted Cormier, and the Nevada courthouse was still humming with that civil filing paperwork that morning. His team couldn’t even get him a decent parking spot outside the arena because every meter was ticketed, yet he still touched gloves like it was just another day at the office. Now take Rampage’s whole “running from the law” thesis and stretch it to fit—he once did a sponsorship deal with some bail bonds outfit and called it “community outreach.” That man’s legal footprint isn’t a stack of papers; it’s a helipad. Meanwhile Jon’s entire public calendar could double as a legal defence handbook and he still clocks in on time for every weigh-in with a smile and a fresh pair of gloves. I could be wrong, but the idea that paperwork beats power is why we’re all here tonight arguing about who left first instead of who finished last.

Knew this thread was gonna get spicy the second I saw "Rampage Jackson’s 2017 tweet" light up like a neon sign in a dive bar back home—still hurts my jaw thinking about that split-second right hand he swung at Jones and how the whole planet watched gravity do its job instead. But here’s the thing that cuts through the carnival of mirrors everyone’s holding up: Rampage Jackson never once stepped into that cage after 2013, legal baggage or no legal baggage, while Jon Jones kept stacking bodies in front of court dockets that read like phone books. You can’t credibly accuse a man of dodging adversity when his résumé includes defending a title on the same day Nevada’s finest were still unsealing another set of subpoenas—while wearing the same pair of gloves he’d used to snuff out Daniel Cormier like a birthday candle. Rampage’s tweet stings because it sounds snappy until you remember he got stopped in eleven minutes flat by the guy who, at that exact moment, had more court paperwork on his plate than a small-town lawyer’s retirement plan. We’re all fascinated by asterisks, but nobody ever asks why the asterisk next to Jon’s name is the only one that points to a judge’s gavel instead of a referee’s hands.