Preface: I'm Swedish but Gustafsson isn't close to being my favorite UFC fighter. I tried to rewatch the fight without bias.
Starting off Gustafsson was picking his shots very well, looked very fluid with his hands and his boxing easily wins him the round. He lands the jab at will and hits Jones with good shots, and he also lands some great inside leg kicks. The first part of the round he was outclassing Jones. Jones does land some oblique kicks (which seem to have no effect on Gustafsson) but not much else. With around 35 seconds left Jones pokes Gustafsson's eye and in the rest of the round nothing much happens.
In round number two there's more of the same, only now Jones lands a head kick (with his toes only) and lands kicks both to the legs and the body of Alexander. Gustafsson counters some of the kicks well but ultimately I think Jones landed more shots and looked more in control. He wins the round by a very small margin.
In round three Gustafsson is countering Jones' kicks even more impressively and landing some good, heavy punches. This might be the clearest round of all five and Gustafsson wins it easily.
Gustafsson is without a doubt winning round four, again thanks to his crisp boxing, when Jones lands a big spinning elbow with just 40 seconds left of the round. Gustafsson is noticeably stunned but uses good footwork and head movement to avoid being finished. Jones really goes after him though. Jones wins this round only because of the last 40 seconds.
In round five Gustafsson lands some good uppercuts when they're in the clinch and Jones finally scores a takedown but Gustafsson scoots to the fence and within seconds gets right back up. Jones lands two good headkicks which Gustafsson eats with seemingly no effect. At this point Gustafsson is looking tired but so is Jones. It seems like Jon at this stage is the more dangerous fighter. Jones wins mostly because of the several clean headkicks landed.
Rewatching it I'm amazed at what a close fight this was. If it hadn't been for the spinning elbow landed in round four, Gustafsson might very well have won the belt back in 2013.
This time around I think Alexander could benefit from employing his quick hands in a more aggressive way. In the last fight he was beating Jones to the punch more often than not but instead of putting the pressure on Jones, Alexander stayed elusive and kept moving around the cage a lot. This was clearly a decent tactic seeing how close the fight was but I actually think Gustafsson has a chance of landing some very damaging blows to Jones if he chooses to stay in the pocket more. On the other hand, Jones throws lethal elbows. Also worth noting tha Jones ended up landing about four or even five clean headkicks to Gustafsson and one way to avoid that happening again could be to close the distance more often.
In summary, who the hell knows how this will go? It's impossible to tell. These are two extremely evenly matched fighters and I think it boils down to a few key points.
- Has Gustafsson's chin deteriorated since then (Rumble really did clobber him)? In this fight he ate a lot of heavy kicks which would have ended other fighters. What happens if Jones lands those kicks again?
- Has Jones improved his boxing? If Jones can compete in this next fight using his hands, the big advantage that Gustafsson has is nullified. I don't see this as very likely though as Gustafsson has boxed since he was 10 and Jones started out as a wrestler. I think the skill gap is still there.
- What level of roiding has Jones done for this fight? If he's been doing his cycles properly, he could be strong as a mutant for this fight. I think he's left no stone unturned this time around as he was so close to losing his belt in their first fight. Gustafsson could be walking into something very dangerous.
- What improvements has Gustafsson really made since then? We haven't seen that much of him. Has he still been working on his wrestling seeing as that's the most unintuitive part of MMA for him? Has he improved his kicks to the point where he can hurt Jones that way? If so, that levels the playing field a bit.
All in all, I'm very stoked for the fight but I don't really have much faith in someone beating Jones at this point. The guy really deserves a beating but even if Gustafsson performs well I think it's going to take something quite special for someone to get the nod against Jones.
Jose Aldo is the nicest fighter ever... He saved Martinez from getting KO'ED
