It’s been a couple of days, warriors are out of intensive care and the dust has settled. It’s time to reflect on 2013’s fight of the year.
Saturday’s fight between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson was an instant classic.
The best thing about it was that it was great in so many different ways. First of all, it was a no-frills, blood-and-guts war that stretched each man to their absolute physical limit. Both fighters were so beaten up they could not make it to the post-fight press conference and instead had to take a trip to the hospital.
Jones’s display of heart should win him some new fans (he certainly won me over). He battled through constantly accurate punches and fought through a potentially fight-ending cut with almost no regard for the long-term health of his eyes. Similarly, Gustafsson survived just being in the cage with Jon Jones early on and then looked like the closest thing we’ve seen to a zombie in the octagon. From the moment the champ landed that elbow in the fourth round, Gustafsson looked ready to keel over at any moment. However, he kept upright and even fired back some strikes of his own despite eating constant head-kicks and dodging more spinning-elbow attempts.
Something else that mad the fight so great was the way Jones was made to look human. With the exception of a tight armbar in the first round against Vitor, and a little difficulty with Lyoto Machida, Jones has eased through each of his opponents over the last couple of years. The Swede took the fight to him, made him look ordinary and looked comfortable doing it. He even took Jones down – rrepeatedly – and stuffed all the attempts that came his way until the very last round.
FInally, one of the best things about this fight for me was that the right man won. I don’t know what other people were watching to make them enraged with the decision. Sure, Gustafsson was winning the fourth round, but he got beat down in the last minute. With a scoring system that prioritises effective striking and grappling, you award the round to the fighter who landed the most effective strikes. Jones’s elbows, punches and knees almost put Gustafsson into another dimension, so earned him a deserved 10-9 on all the scorecards.
As for the rest of the rounds, I tought it was 9-10, 10-9, 9-10, 10-9, 10-9 in favour of the champ. It was very close, but a closer look at the night should leave you with no doubt about the result. Maybe it was Gustafsson’s success in the face of adversity like Shogun against Machida that made some people score the Swede’s efforts more generously (I still think Shogun won that fight, but it’s a popular opinion), maybe Jones haters were trying to make more of a case for him to be beaten. At the end of the day, most people seemed to get the decision right including the three most important people sitting at the side of the octagon.
A lot of people have been demanding an immediate rematch after this fight, but I don’t think we should jump to that straight away for a couple of reasons.
First of all, Glover Texeira is waiting in the wings and he’s no spring chicken. He’s riding an enormous win streak and there will not be too many times when there will be such a viable opponent for Jones. I don’t think Glover is as good as Gustafsson or will give Jones any trouble, but there are not too many other light heavyweights you can put in there.
Secondly, Alexander Gustafsson is going nowhere. THis fight marked him as the clear second banana in the division, and I predict he will have no problem winning his way back into contenders. Forget Jones at heavyweight for now, the buzz for a rematch will build (remember Silva vs. Sonnen 2?) and we’ll all be very excited in a year’s time when these two warriors face off again.
Triangle Choke MMA 