Jon Jones reclaims GOAT status by easily defeating Cyril Gane to become the UFC Heavyweight Champion

Before enter­ing the Octa­gon to chal­lenge for the UFC Heavy­weight Cham­pi­onship, Jon Jones was already arguably the great­est mixed mar­tial artist of all time. A few min­utes lat­er, the word “prob­a­bly” was dropped as Jon Jones secured a first-round sub­mis­sion with a quick kill of Cyril Gane to become the UFC heavy­weight champion.

Jones has­n’t played since 2019, when he defeat­ed Dominic Reyes to retain the light heavy­weight title. But then he dis­ap­peared for three years as the UFC watched fight­ers like Kamaru Usman, Alexan­der Volka­novs­ki and Khabib Nur­magome­dov try to claim them­selves as the great­est mixed mar­tial artist of all time.

In three years with­out a Jon Jones match, no one has been able to keep enough dis­tance to jus­ti­fy them­selves. When it was announced that he would be return­ing to the new divi­sion, many won­dered if the 35-year-old fight­er still had a chance. That ques­tion was answered with a “yes” when Jones braised the gane.

In the first minute, Jones thrashed Gane before clos­ing the gap and tak­ing Gane to the can­vas, but it was­n’t a very intense match. Jones moved up aggres­sive­ly, grap­pling Gane and land­ing a guil­lo­tine choke. Gane quick­ly gave up and Jones regained his posi­tion as pound-for-pound champion.

Jones took lit­tle dam­age and quick­ly set his sights on for­mer UFC heavy­weight cham­pi­on Steep Mio­cic, who was sit­ting next to him in the cage, look­ing for his next title challenge.