UFC’s Jon Jones tries to bring some artistry to mixed martial arts

Jon Jones, an acrobatic 24-year-old light-heavyweight champion, is fast becoming the most marketable fighter in Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Lyoto Machida is the increasingly desperate former champion, a 33-year-old karate specialist who needs to end the reluctant fighting style that cost him two bouts last year and start aggressively unloading his arsenal of skills.

Together, the men have the chance to create a special fight Saturday night at UFC 140 in Toronto.

“There could be some cool, tricky things going on in there,” said Jones (14-1), making his second title defense.

Jones, whose only “defeat” was a first-round disqualification for throwing too many blows to the head of a beaten-up Matt Hamill in their 2009 fight, helps UFC advertise beer and cellphones, and he has his own endorsement deal with K-Swiss shoes and apparel.

The draw is his fighting style: spinning punches and kicks; discipline in the sport’s most important base, wrestling, and active throughout.

“I don’t schedule too much activity when I have a fight, and I have free time when I’m not fighting,” Jones said. “I’m always doing something — shadow boxing, bobbing and weaving, throwing punches, thinking about my fights.”

That family trait runs deep. Jones’ older brother, Arthur, is a defensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens, and his younger brother, Chandler, is a defensive lineman at Syracuse.

“I wouldn’t want to be the brother who didn’t make it,” Jones said. “I want to keep up with the Joneses.”

That requires beating Machida, who lost his title by first-round knockout to the same man Jones defeated for the title earlier this year, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. Machida in 2010 also lost to another man Jones just beat, Irvine’s Quinton “Rampage” Jackson.

“Stylistically, this fight is so fun and interesting,” UFC President Dana White said. “Machida is only interested in winning back the title. It’s all he’s been thinking about. I don’t expect him to lie back as he’s been doing. I expect fireworks from Machida right away.

“And you know what Jones will do.”

Jones’ skills and his unpredictable deployment of them has made life miserable for each of his opponents, and it’s built a champion’s confidence.

“There’s nothing that has me that concerned with Machida,” Jones said. “I don’t look at him as a problem. I look at him as a game, a challenge. I’m not the contender here. Two people have beat him recently.

“He needs to worry about what I’ll do to him.”

Jones admits he’s a work in progress, and praises middleweight champion Anderson Silva and injured welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre as gifted mixed martial artists “who know so many more things than me.”

He wants to reach that stratospheric level of the sport, stooping to ask for people to follow his Twitter account because he failed to win a White bonus collected by other fighters who better publicized themselves.

“My goal is to be the best,” Jones said.

lance.pugmire@latimes.com

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