UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is squaring off with surging contender Glover Teixeira at UFC 172 on Saturday, but fans are still clamoring for the champ to rematch Alexander Gustafsson.
Jones, who heads into Saturday night on the strength of a 10-fight win streak (eight finishes), has walked through the best the UFC has to offer—with the exception of “The Mauler.”
“Bones” and Gustafsson fought a 25-minute war at UFC 165 in September, with both competitors bloodied and battered when it was all said and done. While some pundits disagreed, Jones was awarded a close decision over the game challenger.
On The Jim Rome Show on Wednesday, Jones admitted he got a little cocky during his training camp for Gustafsson and didn’t push himself as hard as he could have. Per FoxSports.com:
“I went 80-percent,” Jones said about the Gustafsson fight. “I’m not making any excuses, Gustafsson did a great job in the fight, but I know I had a lot more in me. I did some of the cardio tests that I normally do and my numbers weren’t the same.
Me knowing that, I still went into the fight thinking well since I can’t perform excellent, maybe I’ll still perform really, really high and still really, really good and maybe the fight will be a little bit closer if I just put half the effort in. I learned the lesson the hard way that you have to give full effort.”
Prior to the tight victory over Gustafsson, Jones dismantled Chael Sonnen at UFC 159 a year ago, taking him down at will and finishing him with ground-and-pound late in the first round.
At that point, he had also recorded finishes in eight of his past nine fights.
Meanwhile, Gustafsson was once again declared the No. 1 contender for Jones’ belt after knocking out the previously undefeated Jimi Manuwa at UFC Fight Night 37 last month.
Shortly afterward, White announced that Gustafsson would get the winner of Jones vs. Teixeira.
Should Jones get past Teixeira this weekend, will we see a much more dominant performance from him when he squares off against Gustafsson for a second time.
John Heinis is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA editor for eDraft.com.
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