Well first off it also shows that nobody, absolutely nobody, saw BDJ's last fight at 185lbs. He looked soft, physically. Very soft. He also looked extremely out of shape. His success when he was out rep was due to grit, athleticism, physicality, and a hellacious tank in comparison to the rest of the gents who participated at our trials that year. He has none of that now.
His path the year he won didn't have anybody that was a contender any other year, before or after, though... so I think our sampling plan is very limited.
Add in that at Worlds he lost to a guy via Tech that lost the next round to Myles Amine and I really thing that shows you that most of his success was also due to who wasn't entered as much as it was that he won the matches required. Also earlier at Pan Ams, he had a result against Torreblanca that was... less than stellar (in comparison to Amine as well).