What it's like to fight (and lose) against UFC star Jon Jones - ESPN

Whether Jon Jones is using the leverage of retirement to up his price for future bouts, or has run out of opponents that excite him, or is seriously contemplating the end of his career, it's clear his heavyweight title fight against longtime former champion Stipe Miocic on Saturday is likely one of the final times we'll see Jones (27-1, 1 NC) in the Octagon.

From becoming the youngest champion in UFC history by stopping Mauricio Rua, to defeating Ciryl Gane to become a two-division champion, Jones has cemented himself as the greatest mixed martial artist of all time in the minds of fans, analysts and many of his peers.

The man at the center of that achievement remains largely a mystery, maybe even to himself. As erratic outside the cage as he is inevitable within it, Jones has amassed a track record of legal problems and troubling personal conduct. «There's many sides to Jon. And I feel, in a lot of ways, Jon is still figuring out the many sides of himself,» says Rashad Evans, his former teammate, rival and friend.

Jones' brilliance is beyond dispute. He's been in every kind of fight there is. He's submitted opponents, knocked them out, or simply gritted his teeth and outlasted them. His is a career of startling range, defined by one thing, no one has ever beaten him. But if this is the end, what was the greatest of all time made of? There is no one better to answer this question than the men who had to stand and face him in the Octagon.

I asked three former opponents — Anthony Smith, Rashad Evans, and Chael Sonnen — to watch back through their fights against Jones, this time as analysts and storytellers, and tell us what they saw. Though no two fights are the same, all three men told similar stories: Jones executed a