When do we start speaking about John 'Bones' Jones as the next Anderson Silva?

So Jones is the current and reigning Light Heavyweight champion, is undefeated in his last 5 fights and has defeated two legends of the sport in Shogun and Rampage. Now it might still be a little premature to call him the next Anderson Silva but the way in which he has dominated two of the sport's best competitors, not to mention his tremendous reach advantage and his ever expanding and improving skill set, are we looking at the future P4P best fighter in the UFC?

Jones is a monster at 205 and if he wins against Evans (which I see him doing) I can’t see anyone else at this division taking the belt from him anytime soon.

Silva has fought a couple of times at 205 and won but he is getting on a bit though, I would like to see Jones at HW but not for a while yet. I always hate p4p lists as they are so subjective, but Jones is so dominate at the moment it’s hard to argue anyone putting him near if not at the top of that list now let alone in the future. Personally after Silva's fight against Sonne and Jones just looking so dominant I put Jones above Silva in my p4p list

The winner of JDS vs. Cain both being undefeated and fighting for the HW belt also have a great claim of best p4p.

What is everyone’s current top 10 p4p list? Here is my own hashed out list:

1, GSP
2, Jon Jones
3, Anderson Silva
4, Cain Velasquez
5, Jose Aldo
6, Dominick Cruz
7, Frankie Edgar
8, Junior Dos Santos
9, John Fitch
10, BJ Penn


(My 100th post, woop woop!)

Just realised that JDS is 13-1 so not undefeated and I also realised I forgot about Phil Davis in the 205 division! Grrr... BJ Penn just got bumped into 11th and Davis is in at 10. Davis IMO is really the only one at 205 I can see causing Jones some trouble. Davis vs. Shogun could be a good number 1 contender match.

Should I move JDS as well? This is why I don’t like p4p lists...!

I think Jon Jones can potentially be much better than Anderson.

Jones is a wrestler who looks like one of the best stand up fighters in mma with only 3/4 years training.

Anderson has been training stand up most of his life to be as good as he is. His wrestling and BJJ are good but not amazing.

Also Anderson is in the least competitive division which imo is a big part of why he is so successful. He refuses to fight anyone decent at LHW(probably his natural weight)

Jones could clear out one of the hardest divisions in UFC LHW then move up to clear out HW if he keeps progressing at the rate he is.

Parallels can be drawn between Jon Jones and Anderson Silva. Both dominate their opponents with apparent ease, throw unorthodox strikes and each of their most recent losses come via disqualification from illegal strikes. But for me, this is where the similarities end.

The thing that really stands both fighters apart in my opinion and why you cannot really compare the two at the moment is because of the weight classes that they currently are in. Anderson Silva has completely cleared out the Middleweight division with relative ease, aside from a very difficult fight against Chael Sonnen and never looked back. He has also battered people in a weight class above him. The same cannot be said for Jones.

Granted the 205 division is much more stacked than 185, and Jones has really impressed so far but he beat 'Shogun' on his return from a year-long layoff and a rather uninspired 'Rampage' Jackson. Still impressive feats, but I am very interested to see how he fares against Lyoto Machida or when he eventually fights Rashad Evans. Looking at his opponents prior to getting his title shot, he beat Stephan Bonnar, Vladimir Matyushenko, Brandon Vera and Ryan Bader, none of which are really top-tier lightweights in my opinion.

I think that Jon Jones can be the best P4P in the world and at the moment he is certainly impressing in every outing. But in my opinion he still needs to beat some bigger names before he can really be compared to 'The Spider'.

I think I would consider Jones on par with Silva and GSP if he continues to dominate high ranked fighters for another couple of years i.e. 4-6 fights.

I think he'll be considered an all time great if he's competitive with the4 top boys in the HW division as I think he's a natural; HW, cutting down to LHW so needs to show his worth their IMO, although he has all the skills and years to improve to be truly special.

If and probably when Jones clears out the LHW division (If he beats Machida at UFC 140) and then wins against Evans, who else is there really at LHW? I would suspect that Phil Davis could soon be in with a shot at the title once he comes back from injury and gets a could more wins under his belt, and I can’t see Shogun doing any better against Jones the 2nd time around Dan Henderson maybe? He is what, 41 now? And if he loses to Shogun he is a long way away from any title shot. Seeing Jones at HW against a JDS, Cain, Overeemor even a Brock Lesner now they are some interesting fights