mma / Columns

Gustafsson Takes Aim at Another Title Shot

May 22, 2017 | Posted by Dan Plunkett

Almost four years ago, Jon Jones found himself in the toughest fight of his career. When the fighters gathered to hear the judges’ verdict after five rounds, the defending champion could not have been sure that the belt was coming home with him.

Two years later, Daniel Cormier, dominator of everyone in his path save Jones, warred with the same opponent. After five rounds, one judge thought Cormier had lost, and the fifth round decided the fight for another scorer.

If all goes as planned, Jones and Cormier will meet again on July 29 in perhaps the most important bout in light heavyweight history. Jones and Cormier have defined the past three years of the division, and they may be remembered as the two best fighters MMA’s marquee division has ever produced. On the outside looking in is a player that played an integral, if too often overlooked part of Jones and Cormier’s respective stories. He’s the same fighter that handed both of them 25 minutes of hell.

That fighter is Alexander Gustafsson, a lanky Swedish striker that took both Cormier and Jones to the ground, and made both confront their limits. For now, Gustafsson sits just below the two kings of the division. On Sunday in front of his home crowd, he will look to score a win over another top contender and put himself back in a position to challenge either Cormier or Jones.

Every light heavyweight has aimed to keep up with the Joneses and Cormiers, and Gustafsson is the one that came closest to doing so. After losing to Phil Davis in his tenth career bout, Gustafsson buckled down. He rattled off six consecutive victories and joined Davis at Alliance MMA. (He would come to leave the team shortly after the Jones fight to be closer to home.) Among those, he stopped Matt Hamill and Vladimir Matyushenko, and routed Shogun Rua, three opponents that Jon Jones toppled during his fast ascent.

There wasn’t an outpouring of interest when UFC announced Gustafsson as the opponent for Jones’ sixth title defense, set for UFC 165 in September 2013. Jones requested the bout in order to dispel a notion held by some fans that his success was due to his physical advantages – standing six feet four inches and boasting an 84.5-inch reach, Jones’ stature is certainly an asset. However, many fans preferred to see Lyoto Machida, who was competitive with Jones for one round in their December 2011 bout, or Glover Teixeira get the crack at Jones rather than Gustafsson. Jones vs. Gustafsson would come to draw an estimated 310,000 pay-per-view buys, the lowest of Jones’ headlining career.

On fight night, Jones and Gustafsson treated those 310,000 or so homes to an instant classic. Gustafsson’s strong first round, taking Jones down for the first time in his career and bloodying him, shocked the MMA community. Jones fired back in the second round, hurting the game challenger with a head kick, but he failed to put him away. In the third round, Gustaffson returned with heavy punches that earned him the frame on most observer’s scorecards, but only one judge saw the round his way. Gustafsson appeared on the verge of securing the fourth round when Jones rocked him with a spinning back elbow, which helped sway the round in the champion’s favor. In the final round, Jones scored his first takedown of the fight, locking up that moral victory at the very least. Gustafsson quickly returned to his feet, but overall, the final frame belonged to Jones, who was the busier of the two.

The UFC set a rematch, which many fans were now eager for, for the following September, but Gustafsson withdrew from the bout with an injury. In his place, Cormier challenged Jones.

The same month Jones and Cormier fought, Gustafsson crumbled to the power of Anthony Johnson. That loss is the main reason Gustafsson isn’t in the immediate title discussion right now; in the time since, Johnson took his place as the division’s #3 fighter. Johnson became a much talked about potential opponent for Jones, but in a pair of bouts with Daniel Cormier, Johnson proved he didn’t quite have the championship mettle.

Despite the loss to Johnson, Gustafsson moved directly into a championship match with Cormier as the best fresh challenger available.

Cormier was strong in the first round. He flipped Gustafsson in mid-air on his way to the ground, and beat the Swede up for much of the round. In the second, what became the story of the fight took hold, as Gustafsson looked to counter Cormier’s efforts to close the distance, and Cormier blasted him with short-range uppercuts at every opportunity. The third round was Gustafsson’s best, as he dropped Cormier to the floor with a knee. Rounds four and five were close, with Cormier aiming to get his hands on Gustafsson, and Gustafsson doing his best to keep the champion at range and use his boxing. Ultimately, Cormier was a bit more successful in his mission than Gustafsson was in his.

Nineteen months on from the Cormier fight, Gustafsson is fighting to regain a spot on the pedestal with Jones and Cormier. On Sunday, he fights Glover Teixeira, who has been one of the five or six top light heavyweights of the past half-decade. Teixeira challenged Jones immediately after Gustafsson, but with far less success.

If Gustafsson gets past Teixeira, he is right back in the mix, and he could put himself ahead of Jimi Manuwa in the line of title contenders. Failure – a fourth loss in his last six fights – would place him far away from rematches with Cormier and Jones, and tarnish a legacy he’s built as one of the top three or four best light heavyweights of his era. The stakes are high; Sunday is an important day in the career of Alexander Gustafsson.

Dan Plunkett has covered MMA for 411Mania since 2008. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @Dan_Plunkett.