Last week, fight fans saw two of the biggest combat sports athletes – Jon Jones and Mike Tyson – enter their respective sports for high-profile showdowns. Revered for the icons that they are within their respective sports, their dominance in-ring has also been marred by their antics outside of fighting. From various run-ins with law enforcement, and allegations of domestic trouble, both Jones and Tyson have caught the public eye for their past problematic behaviors. It makes one wonder – does being dominant in your domain open you up to problematic behaviors? Can one not exist without the other? These were questions podcaster Joe Rogan and actor Josh Brolin pondered on the latest episode of JRE.

UFC 309, Jon Jones, and Mike Tyson were among the many things Joe Rogan and Josh Brolin discussed on episode #2232 of JRE. Brolin couldn’t help but wonder about the parallels between two of the most dominant combat sports athletes of all time – “So why does somebody like that self-destruct? Is that a self-destruction?”. All Rogan said in response was, “Because he’s a wild mother—er! That’s how you get to be that good.” 

Rogan was quick to remind Brolin of Jon Jones’ dominance despite his troubles, both inside and outside the Octagon. He said, “Jon is a special dude. When he’s gone, we’re all gonna miss him. He’s a different kind of guy. I mean, he’s been at the top for 14 f—ing years”. Thereafter, the JRE host pointed out that ‘Bones’ was the youngest fighter to have ever won a title in the UFC. After all, he was just 23 when he defeated Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua via TKO at UFC 128.

This feat of Jones was very similar to Mike Tyson‘s achievement, where he became the youngest heavyweight champion at just 20. Incidentally, both faced controversies after becoming the youngest champions in their respective sports. “But when Jon Jones won that title in 23, it’s just been destruction of everyone ever since – everyone. [He] never ducked anybody, fought all the best, destroyed everybody, dominated his division. Went up to heavyweight, dominates at heavyweight.”, said Rogan of the two-weight champion.

Jon Jones carved an incredible legacy (that probably no one can touch for a long time) in 15 years of fighting for the UFC. Jones practically put away every high-level fighter fed to him and made a lot of those fights look easy. Such is the dominance of Jones, that people forget about some of his lackluster performances inside the cage, Joe Rogan included.

Joe Rogan defended Jon Jones’ legacy despite some of his less impressive performances

In a previous episode of the JRE, Francis Foster expressed his concerns regarding Jones’ chances against Miocic before UFC 309. He claimed that some of Jones’ performances might have appeared less impressive to audiences. Some of Jones’ performances inside the Octagon were abysmal compared to ones where he looked flawless, like the fight against Ovince St. Preux at UFC 197, or his last three bouts at light heavyweights, against Thiago Santos, Anthony Smith, and Dominick Reyes – where he failed to finish all three of them.

However, Joe Rogan was all up in arms defending the heavyweight champion, saying, “He was playing with his food. Mostly, Jon was bored. He was so dominant that he wouldn’t train. You know, when he fought Alexander Gustafsson, they said he barely trained at all and still beat him in the stretch. And then in the rematch, he wanted to prove a point, so he trained really hard and beat the sh*t out of Gustafsson.”

Rogan then reminded Foster of how ‘Bones’ asserted his dominance over Daniel Cormier. He continued, “With Jon, a lot of it is that he’s so much better than everybody else. When he’s really threatened, like with Cormier, then you see how good he really is. Like when he knocked out Cormier with that head kick—that’s when you see how good he is.”

However, now, with Tom Aspinall in the picture, many are questioning Jon Jones’ legacy for refusing to fight the Englishman. On one hand, Jones has done pretty much everything there is to be done in a young sport like mixed martial arts. On the other hand, he has an obligation as a champion to give a chance to interim champion Aspinall, to unify the titles. It remains to be seen how successful Dana White and the UFC will be in making that fight happen. For now, Jon Jones is the greatest athlete to ever compete in MMA.

What do you think of Jon Jones’ career? Do you believe the heavyweight champion should fight Tom Aspinall before hanging his gloves? Let us know what you think in the comments down below.