Jones on the fast track

You can often look back at sports’ biggest superstars and pinpoint the specific time when they suddenly clicked with the public. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird did it when they met in the NCAA finals. Tom Brady did it when he led the Patriots to their first Super Bowl title. And so on.

For 23-year-old Jon Jones, part one took place over the past few days. Part two, the culmination of the journey, could very well take place in six weeks.

On March 19 at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., Jones faces Mauricio “Shogun” Rua for the UFC light heavyweight championship in a match that was put together literally while he was inside the cage at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, beating formerly unbeaten Ryan Bader (13-1).

It was clear from the weigh-ins on that Jones (12-1, the only loss coming via controversial disqualification) had captured the imagination of the UFC fan base, who already had come to the conclusion that he was going to be the next major star in the sport.

Some future starts live up to their hype, like Georges St. Pierre. Some struggle, but eventually get there, like B.J. Penn. Others, like Vitor Belfort, who headlined Saturday night’s show, end up as someone who started off dominating everyone but failed in the end to live up to his initial promise.

But even if Jones had beaten Bader on Saturday night, he was considered at least one more win away from a title shot.

Instead, the man slated to get the next title shot, Rashad Evans, suffered a sprained knee ligament in training on Friday. On Saturday afternoon at 2:30 PT, as UFC president Dana White was driving to the arena for UFC 126, he got the word from both Evans’ doctor and UFC’s doctor, Dr. Steven Sanders, that there was no way Evans would be ready to fight in six weeks.

All of Jones’ fan momentum in recent days – he was the center of attention at Thursday’s public workouts and got a huge ovation at Friday’s weigh-ins – wasn’t lost on White, who made the decision to go with Jones as the new challenger.

But that required several things falling into place: Rua agreeing to the change, and Jones beating Bader.

“There wasn’t a backup plan,” said White. “Right before Jones and Bader came out [for their match], Rua’s team accepted,” said White. “[Jones and Bader] were literally in the Octagon.”

The rest of the plan couldn’t have been scripted better.

Jones ran through Bader, dominating the match from start to finish. Bader couldn’t deal with the wide variety of striking attacks Jones, with his 84-inch reach, was throwing at him. And Bader, a two-time NCAA Division I All-America wrestler, was dominated at wrestling by Jones, who never wrestled after junior college.

Late in the second round, Bader wanted to get the fight to the ground but was having no luck putting Jones there, so he decided to go to his back on the ground, doing the rare wrestler equivalent of pulling guard. That move proved fatal, as Jones locked in a power guillotine from the top for the submission at 4:20.

At that point, the crowd was buzzing. While Jones was heavily favored, seeing it play out against a powerhouse fighter who has been able to out wrestle everyone had people thinking that Jones was destined some day to be not just a champion but perhaps the next dominant champion in the sport. But nobody had a clue how soon that opportunity could come.

White came into the Octagon as Jones was about to be interviewed and said that Evans had blown out his knee, and White added that Jones would be getting the next title shot, a rare moment where momentum and timing intersected perfectly.

“I thought he did pretty well,” said Rua about his new opponent. “In all of his fights he’s been winning convincingly, so I think he’s the guy who deserves a chance to fight for the belt the most.”

The irony of all this is the closeness of Jones and Evans, who both train at Greg Jackson’s camp in New Mexico. In recent weeks, Evans’ role in camp was to mimic Bader.

“He took a lot of punches playing Bader helping me get ready for the fight,” Jones said, noting that he was thinking that starting on Monday, his job over the next six weeks will be to return the favor and mimic the movements of Rua.

“Rashad is an awesome guy, an awesome fighter and an awesome friend,” said Jones. “For people who think he’s arrogant, he an amazing person,” I told him I would never fight him and I was ready to come back and be the best ‘Shogun,’ as a training partner. Now it’s vice versa. Now I’m fighting Shogun, and he’s out of the title picture. He told me, ‘I will never fight you for the belt, and no one will ever force it on us.’ He’s a great guy. I’m really sorry for what happened to him.”

Evans may only be out of action for six to eight weeks. Doctors will put his knee in a brace and hope it heals quickly. There is a chance he may need surgery, which would delay his return significantly longer. Evans has been out of action since earning his title shot with a May 29 win against Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, which earned him the next shot. Rua last fought three weeks earlier, winning the title from Lyoto Machida. But after the win, he needed his own knee surgery. Evans turned down any fights in the interim, not wanting to risk his title shot.

White decided against telling Jones that if he won he would be getting the shot, and White said that had Bader won, the UFC was not planning on offering the shot to him.

“Ticketmaster has been going crazy,” White said regarding the reaction by the public after the announcement. The Evans vs. Rua fight had sold about 9,000 tickets for $1.6 million when Evans went down.

Jones, who grew up in Endicott in upstate New York, said he expects a ton of people from his home city to make the drive to Newark.

“My whole high school will be there,” he said. “With the economy the way it is, nobody wants to take a flight. I know my New York base will be there, and I won’t let them down.”

Rua didn’t have any serious issues with the change, noting his experience fighting for the PRIDE Fighting Championships, where fights often were made at the last minute.

“Well, actually being on the sidelines for a while is never good,” Rua said. “You lose a little fighting rhythm. It is what it is. In the UFC, we don’t fight that much in a year. They take care of us as fighters. They give us enough time to get ready properly. When I fought in Japan, they sometimes would tell me the opponent two weeks in advance. I have time to prepare for this mentally, and everything will be fine.”