Matt Hamill: The only fighter to vanquish Jon Jones

While he’s faced plenty of controversy in the course of his MMA career, Jon Jones has only faced one fighter who has defeated him: Matt Hamill. 

Now 22-1, Jones most recently recorded a decision victory over Ovince St. Preux in April of last year. But the story of “Bones’” loss, if you’ll recall, has more to do with his poor decision making (or ignorance of a rule) than his opponent’s prowess inside the octagon.

Flashback to 2009: Matt Hamill, then 9-2, faced off against the then undefeated Jon Jones at The Ultimate Fighter 10 Finale, December 5, in Las Vegas.

Hammill, as a sidebar, has been completely deaf since birth. In addition to his his MMA exploits, he has a gold medal in Greco-Roman and Freestyle Wrestling from the 2001 Summer Deaflympics.

Back to the fight, After dominating the first round, Jones hit Hamill with several 12-6 elbows (downward strikes) during a vicious ground-and-pound onslaught. Such a strike is prohibited by the unified rules of MMA, and Jones was hit with a one-point penalty for the repeated infractions.

Hamill couldn’t continue in the fight due to a dislocated shoulder, however, and Jones was slapped with a disqualification. Further review of the fight video showed Jones had hit Hamill in his bloody mess of a nose, further reinforcing the decision to disqualify the fighter.

For his part, Hamill didn’t consider the win a victory (which was probably the right take)

“Aside from making a mistake, he [Jones] did his job and he did it well. He definitely didn’t lose this fight, and I definitely didn’t win, but I guess the rules are there for a reason.

It is what it is. I went into this fight feeling like my record was actually 9-1, so with this so-called win, I will now consider my record 9-2.”

Matt Hamill

Here’s some footage from the fight, which basically consists of Jones turning Hamill’s face into ground beef.

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Hamill has gone just 3-6 since defeating Jones. He was released from UFC in 2013 and has lost his three contests since being dumped by the top circuit. Hamill hasn’t fought since a first-round defeat at the hands of Julian Marquez in October of last year, but at least he can rightfully claim to be the only man to ever defeat arguably the greatest MMA fighter in history: Jon Jones.

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