Daniel Cormier and Alexander Gustafsson did everything they could on Saturday to make us forget about Jon Jones.
Cormier and Gustafsson had a whale of a scrap at UFC 192—a five-round epic so close the outcome was in doubt until the moment the third cageside judge confirmed Cormier had retained his light heavyweight championship by split decision (48-47, 47-48, 49-46).
They scraped, clawed, bled and sweated through a back-and-forth battle that will wind up on numerous Fight of the Year ballots. Without exaggeration, we can safely say this was one of the best 205-pound title fights in company history.
“These are the ones that you dream about when you start doing this,” Cormier said at the post-fight press conference. “You don’t dream about them as you [just] want to be involved—you want to be involved and you want to win.”
Even the UFC’s notoriously critical and independent-minded president seemed duly impressed:
And you know what?
It still wasn’t good enough.
For all their heroics, neither Cormier nor Gustafsson came away looking like men capable of suddenly beating Jones. They’ve both already lost to the light heavyweight GOAT, and while both their performances over the weekend were stellar, they fell short of proving a rematch would go any differently.
It’s painful to write that less than 24 hours removed from the thrill of watching these men put their careers on the line in the Octagon. But it would be dishonest not to acknowledge the more uncomfortable feelings lurking behind all the awe and glory.
If Jones returns from his indefinite UFC-imposed suspension in the same shape and possessing the same abilities as when he left nine months ago, he’s probably going to do exactly what we all expect him to do. He’s probably going to get his title back.
All it took to remind us of the status quo’s impending reappearance was one Instagram video—posted and then immediately deleted (naturally) by the former champion.
Less than a week since the morning he stood in front of a district court judge in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and somberly asked for a chance to redeem himself, here was Jones back to his old tricks. Still trolling. Still looking a little glassy-eyed as he delivered a message so brief and empty, the word “cryptic” doesn’t even apply.
Nonetheless, his meaning got through: He’s coming for these dudes—and during his brief absence, nobody in the 205-pound division has done anything impressive enough to make us believe they can stop him.
Don’t get it twisted, Cormier has been wonderful as the glorified interim champion. In some other, Jones-free universe, we’d likely be debating the former Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix winner as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world and maybe eventually one of the best ever.
Heck, we might end up doing that anyway.
Likewise on Saturday, Gustafsson proved his UFC 165 war against Jones in September 2013 was no fluke.
But the truth was, the air had mostly come out of this fight before it even happened.
When Jones received a wrist-slap sentence of up to 18 months probation for an April hit-and-run accident, the rest was academic. Had we believed he would be away from the UFC for an extended period—or that he was in jeopardy of never returning at all—then Cormier vs. Gustafsson might’ve truly shined.
It would have been a chance for the light heavyweight division to strike out in a bold new direction and to prove it could survive and even thrive without its greatest champion. Instead, it seemed like treading water.
Still, Cormier and Gustafsson were good enough to at least momentarily put thoughts of Jones on the backburner.
After Cormier turned the 6’5” Swede upside down and bodyslammed him to the canvas less than a minute into the first round, it appeared we would be looking at an easy victory for the champion. Instead, Gustafsson marshaled his forces and pushed Cormier to the limit on nearly every front for the final 20 minutes.
Gustafsson used his ballyhooed height and reach advantages well throughout the fight. He struck Cormier in the face with hard jabs, bloodying him under the right eye and effectively keeping him at distance. He battered the champion’s body with kicks and knees and used his deft footwork to steer himself out of Cormier’s clutches. He even landed a takedown, just as he did against Jones in their bout.
Gustafsson’s best moment came in the third, when he stunned Cormier with a knee to the face and then dropped him to the canvas with a punching combination along the fence.
Had he been able to follow with more punches, referee Herb Dean might have been forced to stop the fight. But Cormier still had his wits about him, was able to get his hands around one of Gustafsson’s legs and worked immediately to his feet.
That moment was emblematic of Cormier’s performance here. He was hurt but not out and managed to pull himself up and get back in the fight. All told, it was a gritty and hard-nosed victory from a man who has made a life for himself out of being gritty and hard-nosed.
“I just want to fight,” Cormier said. “I’m 36 years old [and] I don’t know how long my body is going to hold up. I’ve been doing this for a really long time. I left a lot of myself in there tonight with Alex. I’ve got to do it while I can and just love the competition. That’s what drives me.”
He kept the pressure on Gustafsson throughout the fight, battering him with uppercuts in the clinch and landing winging overhand shots as his lanky opponent tried to move away. After a tough second round and then getting dropped in a third stanza he appeared on the verge of winning, Cormier cemented his victory with a gutty performance in the championship rounds.
Perhaps it was Gustafsson’s evasive tactics that ultimately cost him the verdict on two of three scorecards. Often when it seemed danger was imminent, he just ducked out and literally jogged away. It was effective, but perhaps ignominious.
“You cannot turn around and run away,” Cormier said of the strategy. “That might hurt you with the judges.”
It did, and in the end, Cormier got his hand raised.
Cormier is the one who will now most likely face a second fight with Jones, after a hard-fought unanimous-decision loss to Bones at UFC 182 in January. Jones has not yet been reinstated by the UFC, but with his legal troubles in New Mexico on the verge of being history, it’s a good bet he’ll be back soon.
And so, the only relevant question of Cormier’s ongoing title reign may be whether he’s improved enough to change the outcome in a do-over.
It will be a gargantuan task—one in which merely being great probably isn’t going to cut it.
To win, he’ll have to be the greatest.
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