ESPN Mixed Martial Arts

When Jon Jones fought Andre Gusmao at UFC 87, "Bones" was already a practitioner of creative hostility.

At the time, Jones was trying out unusual kicks and punches in a shed in upstate New York, envisioning those spinning elbows and saddle throws that fall under the umbrella of judo. He knew, even then, that he could "dirty box" from three feet out of harm's reach. I remember Tandam McCrory, the lank Barn Cat, preaching Jones’ use of range from back in those days.

The thing is, Jones was never really raw. But, at one point, he was mostly just creative.

Today, Jones is a coachable, maniacal center of poise who institutes and sticks to game plans -- game plans tailored to his overwhelming reach advantage, speed and the eventual surrender of his opponent’s optimism. These days you can visibly see guys lose spirit in a fight with Jones. You see theoretically sound ideas go right out the cage door.

His fight at UFC 145 was no different. Rashad Evans, the former light heavyweight champion, was supposed to close the gap between himself and Jones, and fight on the inside. This was Evans’ criticism of old foe Quinton Jackson, who couldn’t sneak inside Evans' striking range at UFC 135.

Once in, Evans was supposed to dump Jones on to his back like he did Phil Davis -- a lengthy wrestler -- and make it a grueling, grinding affair. Make it boring. It all seemed reasonable enough.

Yet, like Jackson, Evans couldn’t sustain close, and he settled into a stand-up fight with Jones, where he was forced to stay in the champion’s orbit. In other words, the danger belonged to him alone. When Evans did manage to get inside, Jones threw elbows from puncher’s range; when the wrists were locked at his waist, Jones threw shoulders.

As has become the custom, Jones did it his way. The big difference is that he’s traded in the unpredictable for telegraphy and “try and stop me.” Even scarier: The freelance improvisations that we saw against Stephan Bonnar and Jake O’Brien are still in Jones' arsenal, but they’re now situational. His cool dictates the fight.

The Jones of 2012 is a Zen-harnessed version of his already ridiculous self. Before, it was a showcase of a rare and gifted skill set you wondered whether would work on elite competition.

Now Jones is far and away the elite, and everybody else at 205 pounds is left studying the Mona Lisa. He knows it. The guys he fights -- and an increasing number of fans -- know he knows it and want to put a stop to it. They can’t. Even Evans, who had some trade secrets from his days training with Jones at Greg Jackson’s gym couldn’t stop it. Whatever vulnerabilities could be found in sparring sessions have nothing to do with the combined “it” factor that he saw on Saturday night. Jones slows the fight down. He fights without emotional projection, like it’s a casual undertaking to be gotten at with patience and skill and ungodly long limbs. He kills himself in training to make it look easy on fight night. He fights twice as much as Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre.

In MMA, it’s Jones' world right now.

And it’s why at this point a lot of people are sold on the fact that he has cleaned out the light heavyweight division. Dan Henderson lingers, but not many are convinced he’ll bring anything to the table that Jones hasn’t seen. Hendo has that right hand. He has the wrestling pedigree. He has willingness. All of it admirable.

But there will be questions, most common of which will be this: How do you defeat Jon Jones? Plenty of fighters have had their theories handed back to them by Jones with a wink and a "nice try."

So, Dan Henderson -- how do you, at 42, beat Jon Jones, the phenom who’s already fighting to his potential at 24 years old?

For as dominant as Jon Jones appeared to be Saturday night while earning a lopsided unanimous decision against Rashad Evans, the challenger had a glimmer of hope to win the fight. And if Evans goes home to cry like he joked he would during the UFC 145 postfight news conference, that'll be why.

The former UFC light heavyweight champion wouldn't reclaim his title for several reasons. First on that list of course: He fought Jones. The current king is on a tremendous run, and by all rights stands unbeaten after 17 fights regardless of what the rules say about what went down against Matt Hamill.

Had Evans done everything right he still probably wouldn't have won, such is the state of Jones' natural ability, tenacity and preparation. But that doesn't change this fact: Even if it was but a brief moment, Evans must have felt like victory was possible.

Following a brutally rough second period in which he was knocked around the cage by the champion's elbows to a degree I'd never seen before, Evans was in worst-case-scenario mode. He couldn't decipher range or timing and Jones had settled in. The challenger said later this was because he fell flat, which, if you wish, could be added to the list of reasons he didn't win, but that's not reflective of reality. Evans didn't fall flat in the biggest fight of his life so much as Jones rendered him ineffective.

That is, until early in the third round, when, after taking all those "sneaky" elbows to the face, Evans slammed home an overhand right that knocked the champion back. The punch didn't "hurt," Jones said, but it certainly fell within the limits of what's required to wobble him.

If Evans goes home and cries, it will be because this was the lone sequence in the fight when the notion of winning didn't seem completely off-base. And, quite possibly, it's the closet he’ll ever come to beating his former teammate and rival.

While two of the three judges scored the first round for Evans, I thought the third was his best stretch and gave it to him. Perhaps that was aided by the fact that the challenger managed to halt Jones' growing momentum and seize some for himself.

Hey, maybe the idea that Evans really had a crack at the fight is illusory. I don’t want to overstate this. It’s not as if Evans rocked Jones, then let him off the hook. He didn't, in part because the champion can take a punch.

The point is, Jones felt Evans’ power. The dynamic of the fight was there to shift in the challenger’s favor, and yet it didn’t. Instead, during the championship rounds, Evans accomplished little to establish any momentum. Or, as it were, simply go for broke. He fought as if beating Jones and reclaiming the title weren’t as motivational as he made them out to be in the lead up to the bout.

Evans essentially had one situation to feel good about over the 25-minute bout, yet in the end that punch could very well be the thing that makes him shed tears -- it represents a wasted chance. He needed to win this fight Saturday. A rematch won't bode well for Evans. Jones will only improve technically and mature physically in the time between fights. His confidence continues to mushroom, too. Perhaps Evans could pick up some tricks in the gym, but his speed won’t increase. He won’t get any taller. His arms won’t lengthen by 10 inches.

Jones is on the upswing; Evans, on the downswing.

And in a game that requires making the most of one’s chances, the challenger didn’t help himself very much when he could have.

ATLANTA -- No light heavyweight will defeat Jon Jones. At least not anytime soon.

“Never” is a word seldom used in mixed martial arts -- a sport where truly one moment can change everything. A fighter can be on his last leg, staggering to the fence, and still win a fight with one desperate, groggy swing.

In the case of the 24-year-old Jones (16-1), however, it seems destined not to happen at this weight class. The third defense of his UFC title against Rashad Evans this weekend at Philips Arena was supposed to be his toughest fight yet.

If it was, no one could tell.

Jones failed to finish Evans -- the first time that he hasn't stopped an opponent since January 2009 -- but he dominated every aspect of the fight.

He started to find his range late in the first round and carried that through into a spectacular second frame where he staggered Evans with multiple elbows. The round seemed to have an effect on Evans’ confidence the rest of the fight.

“I thought it was great,” said UFC president Dana White. “I thought [Jones] fought a great fight. He threw elbows like they were hands. I thought he fought a great fight and I thought Rashad did, too.”

Jones, inexplicably, slowed down a bit in the later rounds. Afterward, he attributed his hesitancy to a respect for Evans, a former champion and teammate of his.

“Rashad is an awesome opponent,” Jones said. “He’s definitely game. He’s fast. I think I was a little intimidated at some points to believe in my ability and, as a result, I didn’t fight as clean as I would have liked.”

During the postfight news conference, White stated fans expressed optimism on Twitter for Dan Henderson as the next challenge to Jones’ belt. White agreed, calling Henderson “a big test.”

While Henderson is one of the most successful fighters in the sport’s history, he’ll likely be 42 when he meets Jones. He’ll struggle, as all of Jones’ opponents do, with a significant size disadvantage.

A former Olympic wrestler, Henderson will want the fight on the ground, but he’ll have to become the first fighter to take Jones down to do it. Jones’ takedown defense in the UFC stands at 100 percent. It was difficult to say exactly how many takedowns Evans, a great wrestler himself, attempted -- as Jones thwarted each of them easily.

It’s not time for Jones to move to the heavyweight division yet. He’s still, presumably, years away from his prime and at a time in his career where his body is still changing.

He has nothing but high-profile fights ahead of him, much like Saturday’s. While many fans will no doubt say Sunday morning the contest fell short of expectations, it might just be that expectations need to be changed.

Until he moves on to the challenge of fighting heavyweights -- where he’ll more than likely remain successful -- expecting a test for Jones is downright unrealistic.

Randy Couture is convinced an out-and-out striker will never beat UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones, predicting that the likes of Dan Henderson or Chael Sonnen are the men to dethrone the 205-pound king. More »

By now, most everything that could be said about Saturday night’s UFC 145 main event has been said ad nauseam.

We’ve had more than a year to stew on the rivalry between Jon Jones and Rashad Evans, our collective patience tested through a couple of false starts and what have come to feel like interminable delays. We’ve already heard all there is to hear about their shattered friendship, the internal turmoil at Greg Jackson’s gym and the fallout from Evans’ eventual departure. We’ve listened to all their best prepared material, their juiciest off-the-cuff retorts. We’ve watched them snipe at each other in person, in print, on video, on Twitter and via text message.

Scientists are currently scrambling to invent new and interesting ways for these two to call each other names.

As for the rest of us, we’ve asked the legends to break it down for us. We’ve asked the pros. We’ve asked the man on the street. The burden placed on this feud was only compounded by a recent unprecedented lull in UFC programming, and now that it’s finally fight week, public sentiment could probably best be described as “Oh, just get on with it already.”

It’s been an amazing buildup -- mind-blowing, honestly -- once you consider that very, very few people actually believe the outcome is in doubt.

Lost in all the shouting about who stabbed who in the back, the soothsaying about Jones’ unlimited potential and the reassuring platitudes about how there’s nothing at all weird that the 24-year-old light heavyweight champion is being sponsored by the UFC for this bout remains the one largely unasked question that is perhaps most essential to the Jones-Evans saga, to the future 205-pound division and to the company’s current Jones-centric marketing efforts:

So, uh, what if Rashad Evans wins?

As of this writing, Evans is more than a 3-1 underdog to the effectively undefeated champ. The overwhelming consensus seems to be that while he might prove to be Jones’ stiffest test at light heavyweight, you’d have to be crazy to actually pick him to win. Conventional wisdom says Evans will ultimately be too undersized and too, you know, not Jon Jones-ish enough to pull off the upset.

That Evans feels overlooked and underestimated in this bout is a given (he’d had to have spent the last year willfully ignoring everyone and everything to feel differently), and the stakes loom even larger for him than simply being shortchanged by fans and media types. Not only is he facing the guy unilaterally considered to be the future face of the sport, his former-teammate-turned-nemesis, but Evans’ own camp released a video this week in which he admits he thinks even the UFC doesn’t want him to win.

"To me, it honestly feels like they don't want me to have the belt,” Evans said. “That could just be my paranoid mind thinking, and it probably is. They're probably just indifferent to the whole thing, but in my mind I feel like they're like, 'Oh man, we don't want this dude to be champion. We don't want him to be champion.'”

Evans backed off that statement a bit in its aftermath, saying it was just an effort to psyche himself up for the biggest fight of his life. Let’s be honest, though: If it turned out that secretly, deep down Evans really did believe the UFC would rather have Jones as its 205-pound titlist, we’d understand, right? After all, it’s Jones standing next to Dana White in that Bud Light ad, not Evans. It’s Jones who has his own signature line of UFC apparel, who smiles confidently at us from the front page of the UFC’s official store this week.

Evans has historically had a rocky relationship with UFC brass, and though his evolution as a fighter has been downright remarkable, nobody is saying he’s the future. Nobody's jumping the gun with rampant speculation about how he’ll fare as a heavyweight once he cleans out the 205-pound division.

If the rest of us have had more than a year to watch his rivalry with Jones grow stale, Evans has had a year to wallow in it. After all the talk and talk shows, after the backstabbing and the beer commercials, he doesn’t have to carry the weight of our expectations, nor does he get to enjoy our fawning reviews of his every move. He doesn’t have a $150 tracksuit with his name on it. He’s not “getting real close” to a deal with “a major shoe company.”

All Evans has is a chance to prove us wrong.

When you’re not lucky enough to be the popular pick as the future Greatest of All Time, maybe that’s all you can hope for.

Dan Henderson recently made the suggestion to ESPN that Jon Jones will "definitely" be taken down by Rashad Evans at some point in Saturday's UFC 145 title showdown, and at Wednesday's news conference Jones responded to the claim. More »

You'd guess by now Jon Jones knows everything he could wish to know about Rashad Evans.

Not so.

There’s never enough intel -- not for Jones, especially when he’s days away from a fight the UFC light heavyweight champion has pondered over for far too long.

So while participants on a conference call designed to hype the main event for UFC 145 heard Evans lambaste Jones as a cocky liar and his old trainers as patently selfish, Jones gleaned something else. Something he thought was telling.

"They say if you want to get into a man's head, listen to the words that are coming out of his mouth,” Jones explained an hour later.

Apparently, among Jones’s many other gifts, the 24-year-old budding superstar is capable of filtering meaningful data, what he called "the true intent,” through the incessant noise of a melodrama.

On Friday, after listening to Evans speak, Jones came to the conclusion that his challenger, rival and former friend is distracted. This is significant, Jones went on to say, because it signals that Evans, in some measure, isn't fully focusing on what it will take to win Saturday’s upcoming five-round title bout in Atlanta.

This is the champion’s take: While Evans has revenge on the brain, Jones is thinking tactics.

As insights go, it may not be Jones’ most impressive. Evans basically confirmed as much. Of course he wants win and regain the UFC belt, but the 32-year-old mixed martial artist is no less eager to teach hard lessons to the current titleholder and the team for which he once fought.

The champion sees Evans as being "more caught up than the fans are” in the drawn-out tale of how their rivalry and fight came to pass, and of the potential payback aimed at trainers they once shared.

“Rashad's biggest thing is to win this whole prefight drama,” Jones said. “He's stuck on winning over fans. He wants people to hate me and hate Greg Jackson. That’s the only thing he cares about, and in the process he has stretched the truth on numerous occasions.”

“

He's stuck on winning over fans. He wants people to hate me and hate Greg Jackson. That's the only thing he cares about, and in the process he has stretched the truth on numerous occasions.

” -- Jon Jones, on Rashad Evans being caught up in emotions

Evans is certainly emotional about his situation, which any reasonable person should understand.

Not only does the challenger feel wronged by people he considered close friends; he lived the sporting truth that no matter how good you are -- and he’s excellent at this fighting stuff -- inevitably someone younger, faster, bigger or stronger is waiting in the wings. In this case, that happened while he was still in his prime.

Jones can claim to knows Evans’ thoughts or feelings, but for all his alleged intuition, he’s never actually experienced betrayal by a camp he helped build. He has no clue, at least not yet, what it’s like to have someone more talented than him come into his domain, divert attention away from resources that were dedicated to him and usurp what was once his.

Jones is the golden boy of the moment, and golden boys, for periods of their lives, know no such things.

The UFC light heavyweight champ has only begun his ascent. Youth, talent and physically unique dimensions, including a dominant shot-blocker’s wing span, all made up for the fact that he remains new to this game. Despite holding the belt, a distinction earned just three years after he stepped into the mixed martial arts world, Jones isn’t nearly as good as he projects out to be.

“If you tell him to go out and try something he'll just make it happen,” trainer Mike Winkeljohn said. “It's kind of incredible.”

Compared to Evans, whom Winkeljohn worked closely with for four years when the light heavyweight trained out of Jackson’s camp in Albuquerque, N.M., the trainer said Jones doesn’t do what’s “real normal for most people.” He doesn’t second-guess himself, in part because he’s come to rely on his faith and an ability to improvise in the Octagon.

Half the time, Jones said, he doesn't even know what he's going to do in a fight until it happens.

“Rashad has tendencies,” said the son of a pastor from upstate New York. “He's fought so long he's figured out his favorite moves. I don't have favorite moves. He has no clue what to expect.”

That’s not quite right. Evans has some idea; after all, they have plenty of history in the gym. Depending on who’s doing the recollecting, Evans either put the kid in his place or, as Winkeljohn suggested, had “the fear of God” injected into him.

What the former Michigan State University wrestler may not be familiar with, especially over the last year or so, is how calculated Jones has become. Just as he listens and deciphers to find true intent, Jones also has developed a habit of saying only “what I want to be heard.”

This could be why some people, including and especially Evans, suggest Jones as fake, a fraud. Though the two can be confused, there is a wide difference between someone who isn’t the genuine article and someone who is coldly premeditated. Jones leans towards the latter.

During last week’s conference call, for instance, Jones made an impassioned defense of Jackson after Evans unloaded on the trainer. Offering a verbal one-two, Jones hammered home the notion that the bond he shares with the man Evans felt betrayed by is stronger than ever. He was clean and precise with this words. In real time it sounded like an articulate, honest-to-goodness endorsement of the crew set to work his corner this weekend.

Was this, as it appeared to be, a full-throated endorsement? Or was it more; a message designed specifically for Evans’ burning ears?

"Everything is said for a reason,” Jones answered. And he left it at that.

In this way, the young champion has come to emulate a man he respects more than any other to grace the sports world. Muhammad Ali is the greatest for many reasons, not least of which was his poetic license to verbally accost the opposition.

Jones is different than Ali here -- he said he’s different than Ali in several areas, but wouldn’t elaborate -- in that he generally kills with kindness.

Jon Jones, the smiling assassin.

That is, until his old buddy Evans comes up.

"I don't look at Rashad as a former friend,” Jones said. “I look at him as someone who's trying to take things away from me. He doesn't care about me. He doesn't care about my kids. Why should I care about him? This is a game, and my job is to destroy him."

This Saturday’s main event between Jon Jones and Rashad Evans is the cautionary tale of what becomes of elite teammates who coexist in the same weight class.

It’s fitting for this card, because you know who looks a lot like the Jon Jones of two years ago? Rory MacDonald -- the guy who is being showcased in the co-main event at UFC 145 against Che Mills. Why a showcase? Because it’s an honest-looking challenge in a fight everybody expects the upstart to win. Just like when Jones fought guys like Brandon Vera and Vladimir Matyushenko. These fights happened right after Jones relocated from an anonymous upstate New York gym to Greg Jackson’s contender’s den in Albuquerque, N.M.

That was around the time he began training with Evans, who started off as his mentor -- the big brother who had a hand in molding raw talent. Even with Jones’ radar going off, it didn’t seem like Jones was coming for Evans' legacy at the time -- at least, not to them. To us, it always appeared different.

You see where things ended up.

Another win narrows MacDonald’s path to the top. The top is the determined goal for a young fighter who wants to rewrite history at 170 pounds. That means the top will also present itself as a crossroads, because Georges St. Pierre -- a training partner that MacDonald calls his mentor -- currently occupies that rarified space. MacDonald moved across country, from British Columbia to French Quebec, to train with St. Pierre.

Since then he’s won a pair in a row, including a one-sided drubbing of Nate Diaz. To be the best, you learn from the best.

Problem is, there can be only one best.

When I spoke to MacDonald for a piece in ESPN the Magazine last month, he laid it out.

“There’s no question that I’m going to be champion; it’s about when,” he said. “And that’s not my only goal in this sport. First, I’m going to get that done, but you guys will see in the future, I’m going to accomplish things that nobody else has done in this sport. I have a long career ahead of me; I just have to stay smart.”

Right now, MacDonald and St. Pierre are leaving such eventualities to blow around in the abstract. That’s fine. There are a million scenarios that could prevent a GSP/MacDonald encounter down the road. MacDonald, only 22, could slip along the way -- or move up in weight. Ditto St. Pierre, who has flirted with middleweight. St. Pierre could retire, or never recover from that knee injury. He could even lose to Condit.

Easier to imagine? He just keeps being GSP, the dominating force who is forever vigilant of complacency -- the last of his known vulnerabilities (thanks to Matt Serra).

But MacDonald is coming. If he beats Mills (and does so impressively), he’ll be a consensus top-10 welterweight. From there, all rungs take him a little bit closer to detachment. There’s a reason it’s lonely at the top.

“At the moment, you know, Georges is a friend of mind, and we train at the same gym with the same trainers with the same regiment,” he said in the Magazine interview. “Georges has looked out for me for the last year and been a good friend, and I have to respect that. I just never say never, but Georges is a friend of mine, and it’s something I can’t answer right now. I don’t foresee it.”

Neither did Jones see the clash on the horizon with Evans. Not seeing it doesn’t mean it’s not on course to happen, it just means it’s preferable not to look.

In a year or two, it could be MacDonald in the headlining spot fighting for the belt. His potential is great enough that it doesn’t seem far-fetched in the slightest. If and when the time comes, to achieve what he's after, the man standing in front of him can’t matter.

Facing an opponent he truly dislikes isn’t something new to top UFC light heavyweight contender Rashad Evans.

Two years ago, he took on -- and defeated -- Quinton Jackson. After his unanimous decision win at UFC 114, it was difficult to imagine Evans ever disliking an opponent more. But Saturday at UFC 145 in Atlanta, Evans will face a guy he seems to despise far more than Jackson -- 205-pound champion Jon Jones. And the feeling is mutual.

A year ago, Evans and Jones were friends and training partners. Today, however, they struggle to look one another in the eye without getting the urge to throw a punch. The disdain between them is powerful and has been on display the past few months leading to Saturday's showdown.

But with the fight only a few days away, Evans is done being angry with Jones. Sure, he'll articulate his dislike for Jones if asked, but he will do so without going off the handle.

It’s time to fight, and Evans refuses to let anything prevent him from being his best at UFC 145. So the former light heavyweight titleholder has put his emotions in check.

“When it comes to having a big fight and the buildup leading to it, emotions are involved,” Evans told ESPN.com. “You have to be able to divorce yourself from your feelings.

“What it comes down to is making it just another fight. Sometimes when guys have so much dislike for one another, it becomes hard to do.

“But at the same time, if you treat it professionally you will be able to do it.”

By taking his emotions out of the equation, Evans is fully prepared to execute his fight plan. And it’s no secret that a big part of that plan involves closing the gap between himself and the rangy Jones.

At 6-foot-4, Jones will tower over the 5-11 Evans. But a five-inch height disparity isn’t much of an issue for Evans; he’s had to look up to just about all of his Octagon foes.

What makes Jones more complicated than others is his 84.5-inch reach. It’s the longest in UFC history.

Evans knows that getting under Jones’ long limbs will be a key factor in leaving the cage victorious Saturday night. And he believes he possesses the technique to accomplish that goal.

“Boxing is my fundamental striking base,” said Evans, who will carry a 17-1-1 pro record and a four-fight win streak into the bout. “I’m a boxer in training. It’s definitely something I will look to implement in my strategy.

“It’s what I do; it’s what I’m comfortable with.”

But boxing won’t be the only technique Evans plans to utilize. Every weapon in his arsenal will be on display against Jones. He's also incorporated a few wrinkles into his offense and defense that might give Jones pause.

“

It goes without saying that I am going to do what I can to upset the opposition, something a little bit unexpected. If I do everything that is expected, I probably won't win. I've got to mix it up.

” -- Rashad Evans, on throwing a curveball at Jon Jones

“It goes without saying that I am going to do what I can to upset the opposition, something a little bit unexpected,” Evans said. “If I do everything that is expected, I probably won’t win. I’ve got to mix it up.”

This will be Jones’ first time competing in such an emotionally charged bout. Jackson tried unsuccessfully to throw him off; they didn’t have enough history.

But the timing of a fight with Evans couldn’t have come at a better time for the 24-year-old champion.

“From his first UFC fight until now, all of his opponents have been pretty good,” Jones’ manager, Malki Kawa, told ESPN.com. “He’s fought Stephan Bonnar, Brandon Vera and Vladimir Matyushenko.

“Then you’ve got Ryan Bader, a legend in [Mauricio] Shogun [Rua], another guy who’s probably going to make the Hall of Fame in Rampage, and he turns around and beats a guy most people haven’t been able to figure out in Lyoto Machida.

“They’ve all been good opponents, and Rashad is just the latest in a line of good opponents Jon has faced in the past year or so.

“That he is fighting Rashad now is good because he’s got the confidence and a good mental base that has come along with experience.”

Jones (15-1) will be making the third defense of his light heavyweight belt.

This is a fight week that has stretched on for a year -- which is nothing for a conflict that has always been the case.

Even when Jon Jones and Rashad Evans were training partners in Albuquerque, N.M., one fighter was never going to be "off limits" to the other forever. As UFC president Dana White peevishly reminds everyone, brotherhood has nothing on matchmaking logistics, especially when there’s room at the top for only one. For all the things that Jones and Evans shared in common in those carefree early days at Greg Jackson’s gym in the desert, that they shared a weight class was always the bit of taboo.

Ultimately, they never stood by each other so much as in each other’s way.

That’s why this weekend’s clash carries an air of inevitability to it, as well as a strange feeling of “let’s get this over with.” It’s an uncomfortable fight. And yet the best way out, as has been said, is always through.

That’s how things will be in UFC 145’s main event. All delusions have been shattered in the most public way possible. All the acts of betrayal stored into banks of motivation. The house Evans helped build in Albuquerque is coming after him with the new, young prizefighter, the pupil who looks to surpass the master. His replacement. The guy holding the belt he once owned.

These things cut deep.

In other words, this fight has the kind of cinematic undertones that make busybodies of us all. The Jones/Evans conflict broke down barriers -- within each other and externally. It divided a gym that had, up until then, functioned on Zen-like bonds.

Imagine how awkward it’s been on somebody such as former UFC contender Keith Jardine, who was Evans’ BFF before Jones arrived? Jardine still lives in Albuquerque, that forsaken place where Evans was scorned, and still shares the mats with Jones.

Imagine, too, what it’s been like for Jackson, who is the stuck-between that had his guts twisted at for the last year over this ordeal. This is a fight that opened up the teammate versus teammate debate to the point Mike Winkeljohn and Jackson had a sit-down with their den of fighters to emphasize what must be done in pursuit of the ultimate goal (as in, getting a UFC belt and all the perks that come with one).

From that point on, the word “never” was taken out of the collective vocabulary at Jackson's.

Jackson fighters became realists in the Jones/Evans fallout. In fact, a lot of people did. But none more so than Evans, who set out in search of himself like a modern-day Yojimbo, ending up in Florida with the most intense cast of strays ever assembled in MMA as a "Blackzilian" -- an assemblage of fighters who have gathered at Imperial Athletics in Boca Raton, Fla.

But what MMA fans remember Evans for most is that he was once the type of champion to champion a young cat such as Jones, to help him get his bearings and swagger, and finally to put Jones in a place to make him miserable.

Everyone succeeded on the fool’s errand. That place is the here and now.

And it’s Evans task to reel Jones back in, to kick out the scaffolding he helped build. And it’s Jones' job to be the cruel bearer of news: that Evans' day is done and that this is his time. The top isn’t big enough for the both of them.

Which, of course, it never really was.

Chuck Liddell has ridiculed the oddsmakers who have made Rashad Evans a huge underdog against Jon Jones at UFC 145, insisting there is one massively important factor at play this weekend: The challenger knows the champion is not invincible. More »

It will shock absolutely no one to learn that Jon Jones is the future.

Readers who have encountered even a smattering of MMA-related news during the last couple of years understand this to be true. Unless you’ve made it a point not to know it, you already know that Jones is the near unanimous pick to shepherd the UFC and the sport it is slowly but surely making famous into its next phase of unfettered growth and popularity.

No bones about it.

That said, it may have taken some people by surprise this week when Jones claimed that he and his management have received a rather unprecedented stamp of approval from his employer heading into UFC 145.

At least according to the fighter himself, when Jones puts the light heavyweight title on the line against Rashad Evans on Saturday in Atlanta, his primary sponsor will be none other than the UFC.

“We came up with a strategy to keep it clean and be sponsored by the UFC itself,” Jones explained to MMA Weekly after his previous main sponsor, Form Athletics, recently shuttered its doors. “I’m glad the UFC wanted to work with me ... I think I’m a good company guy. The UFC asks me to do anything and I always do it and I never tell them 'no' for anything.”

Depending on how you look at it, this is either very strange or very fitting news.

On one hand, if there is one athlete in this sport that investors, corporate sponsors and the UFC itself should look to hitch their wagons to, it’s the 24-year-old champion.

Even if guys like Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre remain MMA’s best-known draws, Jones’ impossibly long strides are certainly nipping at their heels. He may already be the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world (though it’ll probably take a couple of more wins for the pundits and prognosticators to make it official) and his eventual coronation as the sport’s most recognizable face seems just as assured.

Since the UFC has already very much put itself in the Jon Jones business as of late, showcasing him on beer commercials and network television spots and the late night talk show scene, perhaps it is not that big of a leap for the organization to slip him a few more bucks to wear UFC brand apparel to the Octagon on Saturday. After all, it already markets a line of Jones-centric gear on its website.

The word “sponsorship” might not be exactly the right term, as it's hard to "sponsor" someone who already works for you, but some people will likely not view this as a particularly earth-shattering or even noteworthy development.

Others, however, might note a developing problem of public perception here for the UFC. Especially if Evans is not also sponsored by the fight company.

The UFC already regularly straddles the divide between being a simple fight promotion and the de facto guardian of the entire MMA industry. It routinely plays the dual roles of widely known national sports league and secretive privately held company. Its president consistently wears more hats than perhaps any other comparable sports executive, fashioning himself as a postmodern mashup of Don King, Roger Goodell and Mark Cuban and doing it all better than the three of them combined.

Some of that is by design and some of it is just the natural result of being MMA’s most dominant force. Great power, great responsibility and all that.

Yet even for an organization as adaptable as this one, in an industry as amorphous as ours, sponsoring Jones -- or any fighter -- only further blurs the line of what the UFC actually is and how it views its own place in the MMA landscape.

In terms of the actual, bell-to-bell competition, it’s always been vitally important that the UFC stay above the fray. In the past, it’s done a pretty good job of that. The company has always explicitly maintained that it has no real stake in who wins and who loses its fights, saying it just wants to put on good shows for its fans. This is just as it should be. Once the UFC starts “sponsoring” certain fighters, however -- and again, that’s Jones’ word, not necessarily the one the UFC would use for this particular business realtionship -- it becomes more difficult to maintain that position.

If Jones is the only fighter to walk to the cage this weekend decked out in the UFC logo, it will be pretty easy for fans to think (rightly or wrongly) that the company is playing favorites.

You think that’s awkward? Imagine how Evans will feel if he doesn't get the same treatment.

In the “who’s out there to challenge Jon Jones” discussion, Alexander Gustafsson is the light heavyweight intrigue right now. He is the horizon, the challenge looming at the end of the Mayan calendar for the current champion. Should he lose to Thiago Silva this weekend in his native Sweden in the biggest fight of his young career, intrigue becomes pretty scarce in what has traditionally been the UFC’s glamour division.

So what happened to the well depth at 205 pounds?

Jones happened. Jones happened so fast and Jones pummeled so furious that people are already talking about what he can do to as a heavyweight. Everybody knows that imagination is always first to round the curve, but in this case it feels like meteorological forecasting. Jones is a storm front. In fact, he himself says his days at 205 pounds are numbered, because those skinny legs that earned him the nickname “Bones” will eventually fill in.

And all of this is conversational because Jones has yet to meet his equivalent in a weight class that had for so long been defined by parity. He’s already defended the belt more than anybody since Chuck Liddell’s run from 2005-2007. Since then Quinton Jackson, Forrest Griffin, Rashad Evans, Lyoto Machida -- remember the Machida Era? -- and Mauricio Rua have tried on the belt, couldn’t handle its weight, and ceded it. They’ve all become afterthoughts to Jones’ run -- except for Griffin (who no longer looks like an imposition) and Evans (whom he faces in Atlanta on April 21).

None of the above has made it even so far as the judge’s scorecards.

If Jones defeats Evans at UFC 145, he will still have to get by Dan Henderson, who has been patiently waiting in line since November. After Henderson? As much of a stretch as it seems, it’s Gustafsson. That is, if Gustafsson continues to win. If Silva triumphs in Stockholm over its native son, it could be the heavyweight division sooner rather than later for Jones.

In other words, it’s possible that Jones will have cleaned out the division by summer of 2012. Nobody cleans out divisions nowadays -- nobody. And you know the power of his star is immense when there’s nothing far-fetched in any of this, except for the usual cautions that come with taking anything for granted. For as dominant as Jones is, this sport was not founded on foregone conclusions. If there is a wrench, it looks like this: Jones beats Jones. This is what Greg Jackson and the entire Albuquerque crew are guarding against as much as they are Evans’ takedown ability.

But the next two weeks could clue us in a little bit on Jon Jones’ (extrapolated) future. If Gustafsson holds court, he will have effectively graduated to title talk, which is big in a division of expiring names. Gustafsson might still have to win one more in pursuit of the 205-pound title, but he’d at least appear as viable. In the game of marketable matchmaking, appearances might have to do.

Would Silva look as viable? It’s possible. But right now Silva’s biggest wins are against guys that looked far more imposing before he fought them than after. Guys like Houston Alexander, Keith Jardine and Brandon Vera (which was overturned to a "no contest" due to steroids). Silva is set further back than Gustafsson. Even if he beat the Swede he’d have a harder time convincing the masses that he’s the fork in Jones’ road.

The bottom line is this: If the two favorites in the next two UFC main events win, that means a collision course is setting up. If Jones wins and Gustafsson doesn’t? It’s one last defense with Dan Henderson, and then a lot of talk about how Jones will match up with the likes of Junior dos Santos, Frank Mir and Cain Velasquez.

UFC president Dana White confirmed on Friday that Dan Henderson will fight the winner of Jon Jones v Rashad Evans, and Henderson is warning people not to write off the challenger ahead of UFC 145. More »

The UFC’s flyweight division was exactly one fight old when things went haywire at the top.

That’s so 2012 in the UFC. When title belts are in play, all paths look more like construction zones with detours.

This time, Ian McCall appeared as if he’d won a back-and-forth fight to advance in the shudder-speed flyweight tournament. Then the scorecards were read and it was actually Demetrious Johnson who won a majority decision, turning "Uncle Creepy’s" maestro swagger off as fast as it came on.

His depression didn’t last long.

To the chagrin of flyweight matchmaker Sean Shelby, who was in Columbus for Strikeforce some 10,000 miles away, the Australian athletic commission miscalculated the scorecards on McCall/Johnson. The result should have been a majority draw, and somewhere in the bowels of Allphones Arena in Sydney they informed Dana White, whose only response could be the obligatory tirade of profanity. They weren’t. And the disheartening thing for the UFC was that this was an eventuality it had prepared for by introducing a sudden victory round -- à la "The Ultimate Fighter" format -- to resolve any draws at the end.

But there’s no accounting for human error, and nothing much can be done in that situation except adopt the common shoulder-shrugger’s refrain: it is what it is.

Now Joseph Benavidez -- who TKO’d Yasuhiro Urushitani -- will wait for a rematch that most will be stoked to see and yet shouldn’t have to see. Flies in the Vaseline, they are. Sadly, the UFC’s newest division adds to the already algebraic complications going on with the UFC’s title pictures.

Go back a week and start there. Benson Henderson defeated Frankie Edgar at UFC 144 in a close fight to take home the lightweight strap. Seeing that it was a close fight, one that could be interpreted either way, Edgar asked for an immediate rematch. Problem is that Anthony Pettis, who knocked out Joe Lauzon the same night, wants his shot at the belt, too. He was the last man to defeat Henderson, and was at one point the solid No. 1 contender (a position he fancies himself in again). Jim Miller and Nate Diaz are operating with the understanding (delusion?) that their May 5 fight in New Jersey is a title eliminator.

It’s complicated.

Of everyone, Edgar is the unignorable here. The UFC wants him to challenge Jose Aldo for the featherweight belt, but Edgar doesn’t want to. He rematched B.J. Penn and Gray Maynard without quibbling, and he wants some return love. It’s hard to argue. Before his fight with Henderson, the UFC romanticized Edgar as a Rocky-esque figure in the hype process. Yet not even Rocky was Rocky coming off of wins. He was Rocky because of how he responded to losses. First with Apollo Creed, then with Clubber Lang. And later, after losing the vainglorious Creed to a killing machine from Russia, against Ivan Drago.

How can the UFC draw upon a man’s heart and not give him the chance to show its full dimensions? Having lost to the bigger, stronger Henderson sets the table for a truer representation of his nonfictional Rocky story.

As an extension of the uncertainty at 155 pounds and Edgar, the featherweight division is in limbo. What next for Aldo? Then you glance at the welterweight title picture, and that's way out of focus. Georges St. Pierre is recovering from ACL surgery, and is either way ahead of schedule or possibly right on schedule or something else. He is tentatively looking at a November return. Interim titleholder Carlos Condit is waiting to see something definitive in that timetable before deciding what to do next. Jake Ellenberger is waiting to see what Condit does, and now so is Martin Kampmann (the last man to defeat Condit). It’s possible we don’t see an “actual” title defense at 170 pounds this year.

By slotting Dominick Cruz against Urijah Faber as the coaches on "The Ultimate Fighter" Season 15, that means Cruz won’t defend his bantamweight belt until the summer. And that means any challengers beyond Faber -- guys like super-sensation Renan Barao -- are out of luck until winter.

As for middleweights, Anderson Silva is finally going to fight again in June after recovering from bursitis in his shoulder. There’s a chance we see just one middleweight title fight in 2012.

With eight weight divisions, and a conservative average of two fights per year, there should be in the neighborhood of 16 title fights. That won’t be the case in 2012. There might be 10, if we're lucky.

Can you imagine if Jon Jones had made good on his request to take a few months off? Light heavyweight is the closest the UFC has to a normally functioning division right now. And it looks like Junior dos Santos is ready to go, if Alistair Overeem can avoid injuries and conflicts beforehand.

Otherwise, title fights are scarce to come by this year. Which means we’ll be watching a lot more PFC (Penultimate Fighting Championship) than UFC (the Ultimate variety).