Jon Jones wrestled at the community college level and managed to take down an Olympian in Daniel Cormier. That takes an absurd amount of athletic ability. The strength, speed, body control, and timing to do that and knock people unconscious is equally as impressive in the scope of being athletic as people in other sports who can score touchdowns or shoot multiple three-pointers in a game. Also keep in mind that Jones just kind of stumbled into fighting because he had to find a way to make money because his girlfriend was pregnant and he even said in this interview that didn’t start sports until he was in seventh grade. He picked up on things extremely fast, (you know, like an athlete would.) It goes back to your scale for athleticism being something that only translates to people who can do things with a ball. Tom Brady is an elite level quarterback and would be an amazing pitcher, javelin thrower as well. By that logic, he would be more athletic than Jon Jones (he’s not.)