What if Jon Jones loses at UFC 214?
This is how it's supposed to go: Jon Jones is going to march into the Honda Center in Anaheim next Saturday and reclaim the light heavyweight championship from nemesis Daniel Cormier in the main event of UFC 214.
The fight will take place 10 days from today, Jones' 30th birthday.
One year and 10 days after the headlining bout of UFC 200 - Jones' last attempt to rematch Cormier - was ruined when Jones was flagged by USADA for a banned substance that was later attributed to a tainted sex pill.
And almost a year before that ill-fated rematch with "DC," Jones was stripped of his UFC championship for fleeing a hit-and-run accident in which he struck a vehicle that was being driven by a pregnant woman.
There have been other lowlights, and few highlights outside of his lively banter with Cormier (if you can even call those exchanges highlights), but the prevailing thought is that we can all move past the ugliness of the past 26 months if he returns to form as expected and gets back on the path that had him poised to become the greatest fighter in history.
The thing is, what if he loses?
It's understandable that Jones is favored. He's dominated almost every opponent he's faced including former champions Rashad Evans, Lyoto Machida, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua, not to mention Cormier himself in their first meeting.
Even his closest call, a five-round war with Alexander Gustafsson, was the kind of contest that elevated both fighters in the eyes of the public rather than expose any potential weakness in Jones.
But he's fought just one time since beating Cormier, while the now light heavyweight champion has put together a convincing run of his own, first capturing a vacant title by submitting the fearsome Anthony "Rumble" Johnson, then going on to beat Gustafsson, middleweight great Anderson Silva, and Johnson again at UFC 210.
As strange as it sounds, the 38-year-old Cormier looks like a fighter who is peaking. How Jones will look at UFC 214 is a mystery.
Should Jones lose somehow, the most obvious course of action would be to book an immediate rematch. Cormier has already said he plans to avenge his lone career setback and then offer Jones a trilogy bout to settle the score once and for all. That said, seeing Jones finally suffer a legitimate loss could open the door for an even greater fall.
What if the Jones that fans saw from 2011-15 was his best incarnation? In MMA, it's not unheard of for champions to go from invincible to washed-up in a heartbeat.
Look no further than former middleweight king Chris Weidman, who is in action at UFC on FOX 25 this Saturday. He started his career 13-0, beating Silva twice and also knocking off Machida and Vitor Belfort. Then he was TKO'd by Luke Rockhold and he just hasn't been the same.
Few could have predicted Weidman's steep decline, but his next loss will make it four in a row. Should Jones lose to Cormier, that could be his Rockhold moment - the beginning of the end of his prime.
Keep in mind, even though Jones is young, he's been fighting at a high level since he was 21 years old. That's nine years of trading shots with the best-of-the-best and pushing his body past its limits month in and month out.
Taking that mileage into account and the financial security that Jones has from his past success as well as endorsements, is it possible that he takes a hiatus from the sport? Perhaps an indefinite one a la Ronda Rousey?
The possibility of Jones losing has been so remote for so long that there's really no telling how he would react to Cormier's hand being raised on July 29. Just don't be surprised if the most tumultuous chapter of Jones' career has a few gut-wrenching pages left.
(Photos courtesy: Action Images)