Stickgrappler's Sojourn of Septillion Steps: GIFs of UFC 172

Previously, I posted my GIF Highlights of:

Greg Jackson, Jon Jones' coach, talked about Jon's different attacks and improvisation in an interview with MMAJunkie:

“The thing with Jon is that you have to gameplan for creativity,” said Jackson. “What that means is you identify the safety zones that Glover has, and then I leave it to Jon as to what he wants to do.

“Now, the double handgrabs and the elbows are all protocols that we do. Did we specifically say, ‘Do this to Glover?’ Absolutely not. But I never want to put a fighter like Jon in a box; ‘This is exactly what you have to do and how you do it.’ I think that’s a disservice to what makes him great. I think you put him in a position to where he understands what’s going to happen in a fight, he understands he needs to be in great shape, and then you give him positions and let him work and be creative and flow.

“It’s hard to have a definition of a gameplan. A gameplan isn’t always, ‘Do this specifically and do that specifically.’ It can be, ‘You need to avoid these things, and then you need to take control in these certain positions and then flow, and mix it up.’ I think that’s one of the things that makes Jon so incredible is his ability to improv. You teach him the notes, and then you let him do improvisational jazz to his heart’s content.”

“It reminds me a lot of Georges (St-Pierre), who I was lucky enough to work with for a lot of years. GSP had that same kind of (versatility to where) if you shut down his takedowns, he’d blast you with his jab and his nice right hand. He’s very versatile.

“I don’t want to say that he’s the greatest fighter of all time until he’s closer to the end of his career But he’s certainly on his way of being so.”

“You have to be able to push the envelope a little. You have to be able to do new things, and morale is such an important part of fighting. So we could just jab and move the entire fight, and we’d probably win, but that’s not fun for the fans, it’s not fun for the fighter; there’s just not a lot in it. So it’s much better to try to push the envelope to see what you can come up with, to use these different protocols in different places.

“Some fighters aren’t like that at all. They want to know, ‘I need to know a, b and c, exactly where I need to be at all times,’ and that’s fine, if that’s that kind of fighter. But a very creative and flowing fighter like Jon, you need to give him strong positions to move from and let him have free reign to do what he wants.”

Here is Round 4 which features 8 GIFs! My sincerest apologies if the page loads slowly due to the loading up of the 8 GIFs. Most of them are short, so it shouldn't be that long of a page loading.

Enjoy!

Spinning Backfist and Back Up Elbow - so many different looks to Jones' attacks