Under the still-dormant lights of Fremont Street, illuminated with only the waning rays of dusk that peaked through towering hotel and casino buildings, competitors for the Lion Fight 11 event weighed in on the main stage in front of The D Hotel and Ca…
Under the still-dormant lights of Fremont Street, illuminated with only the waning rays of dusk that peaked through towering hotel and casino buildings, competitors for the Lion Fight 11 event weighed in on the main stage in front of The D Hotel and Casino. Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino and Cosmo Alexandre each made their weight and are now officially ready for the nationally televised muaythai bouts set for Friday, Sept. 20.
It is just the second muaythai fight in the career of Cyborg, while Alexandre will be returning to his roots and looking to add a 41st win to his already illustrious thai boxing career.
Long-time MMA and kickboxing commentator “The Voice” Michael Schiavello was on hand at the weigh-ins and took time to discuss the keys to victory for each of the MMA veterans and their respective opponents.
“Cosmo is a former world champion and former intercontinental champion so for him it is about coming back to muaythai after a bit of an absence form the sport. It’s going to take some readjustment. He’ll come in a little bit cold against a former champion in Nampon.
“It is going to be getting his footwork right again and getting the distance and the timing right. But it’s his natural fighting style so its like riding a bike [and] something you never forget. I’m just hoping he can open up quick and fast in the first round and jump on Nampon.”
Schiavello felt Cosmo’s opponent, Nampon, who holds a 94-35 record, will have the upper hand if he is allowed to establish a rhythm.
“Nampon is the type of guy that if you let him establish his rhythm, particularly with his back-leg front kick, and he puts you in the clinch—you don’t want to be in the third, fourth or fifth round with him.”
The Voice saw Cyborg as having more of an uphill battle when it came to readjusting to the muaythai style. She faces 30-year-old Jennifer Columb.
“For Cyborg, she does have some muaythai experience, but she hasn’t fought muaythai in a long time. So for her the transition might be more difficult.
“It might be beneficial for her that her opponent switched up on her at the last minute. It’s an opponent that comes in on late notice. The opponent hasn’t trained as long for Cyborg. But the risks are there.
“Colomb tends to drop her hands, particularly with her hand combinations, and against Cyborg, that’s a big mistake. She clocks you over the top with a right hand and her strength gives her the equivalent of a much larger woman hitting you with the same technique.”
When asked if Colomb has a chance against Cyborg, Schiavello responded with an emphatic, “definitely.”
“It depends if you have a smart game plan.
“Cyborg’s key to success is to get in close and bully her early. Get in close, grab the clinch, wrestle her standing, dump [Colomb] to the canvas and try to get a big punch off.
“But you can negate that if you’re smart by moving around the ring, smashing leg kicks, taking out Cyborg’s thighs—that will slow down [Cyborg’s] punches a lot.
“I’d say don’t swing for the jaw line or swing to the head too early on Cyborg. I’d move around her for a round, take her legs out, slow her down and in the second round start to pick her off a little more.”
Colomb herself had strong words of confidence when asked about her opponent. Through an interpreter, Colomb stated, “If Cyborg throws a punch, I will throw a kick. If she throws a kick, I will throw a punch. I will fight muaythai.”
When asked what her game plan was coming into the fight, Colomb simply replied, “domination.”
Lion Fight 11 airs on AXS TV at 10 p.m. EDT.
ZG Harris is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. All quotes are obtained firsthand unless noted otherwise.
Unless your interest in fighting peaks with the tale of the tape, there’s a pretty good chance the main event between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 165 isn’t going to satisfy your need for balanced competition.
It’s always a treat to watch …
Unless your interest in fighting peaks with the tale of the tape, there’s a pretty good chance the main event between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 165 isn’t going to satisfy your need for balanced competition.
It’s always a treat to watch Jones do his thing, mind you. And Gustafsson is a fine light heavyweight.
It’s just that anything short of a dismantling would shock pretty much every non-Swedish viewing demographic. The light heavyweight champ is just that far above his contemporaries.
A similar problem exists in the co-main event, where interim bantamweight champ RenanBarao is expected to make target practice out of Eddie Wineland while he waits for the return of the only man who appears capable of threatening him: lineal belt holder Dominick Cruz.
So where does that leave us? Which fight will steal the show in Toronto Saturday night?
I say cast your eyes toward the bottom of the pay-per-view card to two outstanding lightweight grapplers in Pat Healy and Russian phenom KhabibNurmagomedov.
In case you didn’t know, both men are in or hovering near the top 10 in majorMMArankings. And they both have a lot on the line.
Healy is returning to action after serving a momentum-killing 90-day drug suspension, which came down soon after his scintillating UFC debut, a Submission- and Fight-of-the-Night victory over Jim Miller.
Healy is a very large lightweight with one thing on his mind: takedowns and submissions.
Well, that’s two things, but you know what I mean. His striking isn’t Jake Shields bad, but it’s pretty utilitarian, with the utility being its ability to set up clinching and ultimately the aforementioned takedowns and submissions. Healy‘s tough as nails and as grizzled a veteran as they come. You can’t shock-and-awe this guy.
That’s not good news for Nurmagomedov, for whom shock and awe is the standard operation.
Like Healy, Nurmagomedov is a grappler first and foremost. He actually set a UFC record for takedowns in his last bout, in which he treated Blackzilian Abel Trujillo the way a bulldog treats a Koosh ball. It was very rude.
The 24-year-old, who is 20-0 overall and 4-0 in the UFC, has a striking edge over Healy, given that he uses footwork and is probably going to be a lot quicker than his 30-year-old opponent.
But here’s what makes it a great fight: Neither man would appear vulnerable to the other man’s bread and butter.
Healy will not be easily rag-dolled. Nurmagomedov will not be easily ground down. Though Nurmagomedov is capable of pulling a knockout here, it’s far from a given against a tough (if slightly chinny) customer in Healy.
So it should come down to a battle of wills. The pure athleticism of Nurmagomedov, the true grit of Healy.
Insert cliche about forces and objects here, with a place at the contender’s banquet table resting in the balance.
Words are heating up between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson, days before they’re to contest the UFC light heavyweight crown at UFC 165.
Jones has questioned his Swedish opponent’s heart in comments made to FOX Los Angeles, according to …
Words are heating up between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson, days before they’re to contest the UFC light heavyweight crown at UFC 165.
Phil Davis took his soul, took his heart, took his will to fight away in under five minutes. He tapped out with less than 10 seconds left. I think he was being choked for only 2 seconds, so that showed me that he got claustrophobic in there, he was uncomfortable, basically his will to fight was over. That tells me a lot about his character and what type of heart he has. He’s mentioned that he needs to stick and move and I think it does show about his psychology. I think stick and move is a psychology of the insecure fighter. It shows me he may feel inferior somewhere in his heart and if that’s in there, I will draw it out of him.
Gustafsson has a near flawless career in MMA. Except, however, his one loss to Davis in 2010. But he’s since gone on a solid six-fight winning run that has seen him defeat the likes of Thiago Silva and Mauricio Rua.
That victory, which happened in December last year, has landed him in front of Jones.
This will be Jones’ sixth fight as champion and a victory will break Tito Ortiz’s record for most title defenses in the light heavyweight division.
The champion is known to have had deep personal rivalries with all of his recent opponents, including ChaelSonnen, Rashad Evans and Quinton Jackson. However, the run up to his fight against Gustafsson has so far been a relatively civil affair.
Their fight on Saturday will take place at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto where the led signs will be in full effect.
On Saturday, Sept. 21, UFC 165 will play host to the Lightheavyweight Championship bout between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson. Both fighters have just one loss on their respective resumes and each has a history of knocking opponents out in swift f…
On Saturday, Sept. 21, UFC 165 will play host to the Lightheavyweight Championship bout between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson. Both fighters have just one loss on their respective resumes and each has a history of knocking opponents out in swift fashion.
If Gustafsson is hoping to leave Toronto, Canada with the UFC Lightheavyweight title, he’ll need to stay true to that form and end the fight early.
Gustafsson enters the fight with an overall record of 15-1, having won seven of his eight fights in the UFC. Three of those seven wins have come by knockout and an additional three via submission, with just two of his 16 career bouts going three rounds or longer.
It’s safe to say that Gustafsson knows how to end fights early.
He’s not alone in that distinction, as Jones has ended seven fights before the first round and 11 prior to the second. Not only has he picked up knockout victories in that time, but he’s used a submission maneuver to end things early, as well.
Plain and simple, Jones is dangerous in every sense of the word—just don’t think that it means he’s untouchable.
During his first 13 fights, “Bones” Jones reached the third round just three times. During his past six fights, however, Jones has gone to the third round or further in four separate battles.
The common ending has seen each of Jones’ opponents fall victim to fatigue, and in turn, Jones has pulled out a magnificent finish.
Only one of Jones’ past 10 wins has gone to the judges, with the rest ending via knockout or submission. Of the four most recent fights to go past three rounds, three have been ended by submission and one via technical knockout.
Don’t expect the 26-year-old to show any signs of fatigue since he hasn’t already up to this point.
Jones can beat any opponent at any given moment, but in recent matchups, we’ve learned something new. The longer a fight lasts, the better the champion becomes on the mat.
As you can see below, Jones doesn’t believe Gustafsson has the stamina necessary to prevent him from taking control in this fight, either.
Can we blame him?
In 16 career fights, Gustafsson has reached the third round just twice, with nine ending in the first round. With that being said, Gustafsson has reached the third round in each of his past two matches, earning wins over Mauricio Rua and Thiago Silva.
Unfortunately, three-round fights and five-round title matches are completely different animals.
Gustafsson has drawn praise for his conditioning, but to date, he’s never been forced to put that on display. His quick and powerful hands have ended most fights, and when tasked with defeating Jones, he’ll need to turn to those reliable fists once again.
As the saying goes, why fix what isn’t broken?
If Gustafsson is hoping to win this match, his best chance is to prevent Jones from extending the length of the fight. Once the battle goes to the ground, Jones is all but unstoppable, and he’ll impose his will via strikes or attempted submissions.
Gustafsson has improved his ground game, but to call it comparable to Jones’ would be naive.
If the Swedish star can remain on his feet and be aggressive early, he will have a fighter’s chance at winning the gold. He’s as dangerous a knockout artist as anyone in the mixed martial arts community, and as great as Jones has been, we’ve seen more unpredictable knockouts happen.
It will take a legendary effort, but if Gustafsson is going to stand any chance of striking gold, he’ll need to end things early.
While four fighters will be competing for UFC gold at UFC 165, others will be battling to remain employed.
This Saturday’s UFC fight card is headlined by a light heavyweight championship bout between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson. In the co-main e…
While four fighters will be competing for UFC gold at UFC 165, others will be battling to remain employed.
This Saturday’s UFC fight card is headlined by a light heavyweight championship bout between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson. In the co-main event, RenanBarao will try to remain interim bantamweight champ by beating Eddie Wineland.
However, a handful of fighters on the preliminary card will be competing for much more modest accolades. For these unfortunate few, their UFC jobs could be on the line.
Some of the following fighters are in much greater jeopardy than others, but here are the five fighters sitting on the hot seat heading into UFC 165.
At first, we didn’t notice how different he was.
We saw his enormous physical gifts against Stephan Bonnar and Jake O’Brien, two durable veterans who wilted under his surprising strength.
This was a fighter? No way. This was a skinny kid getting …
At first, we didn’t notice how different he was.
We saw his enormous physical gifts against Stephan Bonnar and Jake O’Brien, two durable veterans who wilted under his surprising strength.
This was a fighter? No way. This was a skinny kid getting by because he was longer than his opponents, as if being longer suddenly meant a damn thing if you didn’t know how to use it.
We saw the inexperience and the immaturity, a two-headed athletic hydra if ever there was one, against Matt Hamill. Through four minutes, the skinny kid appeared to be cruising to another easy win. Only this time, it contained a whole lot more violence than we were comfortable with, if we cared to admit it.
Hamill, ever the inspiring story due to his ability to overcome his handicap and make it to the UFC, was for the first time rendered completely helpless, and the number of fans begging for the fight’s stoppage were many. When the fight ended, we didn’t care that it came with controversy; we only cared that it was over.
We saw the pain that he could inflict when he crushed Brandon Vera’s face in his next outing. It wasn’t revenge for the Hamill decision, but Vera’s cranium probably felt like it was. The elbow that did the job made a horrendous sound, both live in the arena and on television.
It was one of the few times in the history of the sport—at least that I can remember—that an injured man shrieked a blood-curdling scream of agony.
Vera was already on a downward spiral, but having his face shattered and his orbital socket dismantled didn’t help matters.
We saw all of those things, and perhaps we would have seen more if we were careful observers. What we never saw in those early days—well before the kid had made his mark as the greatest light heavyweight in the history of mixed martial arts—was the scientific side of Jonathan Dwight Jones.
Much of the marketing effort surrounding his Saturday title defense against Alexander Gustafsson—a Swede with considerable fighting skills—has focused on the idea that Gustafsson is a physical match for Jones and thus the most dangerous opponent that the champion has faced to date.
Being tall has suddenly become a commodity against Jones, mostly because there is precious little left to tout when trying to make fans believe that this athlete has a better chance of dethroning the champion than those who have tried before him.
The marketing is wrong, as marketing so often is, and the public betting odds agree: Jones has been installed as an 11-to-1 favorite in some markets. This is a championship fight against an opponent who allegedly matches up with Jones better than anyone he has ever faced, and yet the public perception gap is widening.
The truth is that Jones’ biggest skill—the one thing that sets him apart from every fighter who has competed in the sport—is his mind. He is analytical beyond anything we have ever seen, constantly considering all facets of a fight. Only Jones doesn’t view it so much as a competition as he does an endless series of problems that need solutions.
Cause and effect.
Jones was not always this way. His parents did not instill the trait in him or his two brothers during their childhood, which is another way of saying that science and analytics were not a Jones household pursuit. He was just a kid; the creative side would come later.
“I never realized how much I used my mind until I started MMA. Wrestling was my thing, but I didn’t use creativity,” Jones said in an interview with Bleacher Report. “But when I became a fighter and I was able to accelerate, I knew I had something special. And I knew it had a lot to do with my psychology. When I started martial arts, I realized I had a creative mind and a unique psychology toward fighting.”
Jones’ fight entrances are something to behold, but they also provide a key insight into the fighter. Go back and watch any fight from the last two years. Only, instead of focusing on Jones in the Octagon, concentrate on the champion as he makes his walk to the cage.
At first glance, you might say he’s emotionless. But that’s really not the case, is it?
The corners of his mouth turn up into a hint of a knowing smile. His eyes occasionally twinkle with the knowledge of a secret not privy to the rest of the world and certainly not to the man waiting in the cage. There is sometimes a shout, which startles you because it sounds crazy and comes out of nowhere.
Why is he shouting and smiling when he’s about to get in the cage and fight someone?
“You will never see me try to mean mug my opponent. If anything, you’ll see a smile or a wink, or something like that,” he says. “A fight is just a problem. It’s a math problem. Maybe not a math problem…but it’s just a problem that you’re trying to figure out. Instead of getting frustrated by it or angered by it, you get excited by it. And then you come up with a solution.”
For lack of a better term, you could classify what Jones has as inner peace.
He is a spiritual man as well as a physical one, rooted equally in the worlds of bloodletting and churchgoing. Sunday mornings spent bruising his backside by sitting on hard church pews were brutally offset by afternoons spent wrestling his two brothers—both future NFL players—in the basement.
All of it, the violence and the worship, were layered on top of each other to create a fighter unlike any before him.
“It all goes hand in hand. I think you have to have a great mind to fight. You have to have a confident mind, a peaceful mind. You have to get your body in the right place to perform and pull off the moves you want, to have the endurance and strength to survive the fight,” he said. “And then once you get your mind and body in the right place, your soul is at peace. You are very confident in what you’re capable of and in what you done. It all goes hand in hand: mind, body and spirit.”
“They all have their parts. You have to be happy with the people around you. You have to be happy in your love life. You have to be happy with your family. You have to be a happy person. You have to be confident. They all go together.”
When the Octagon door closes, Jesus must assume a seat in the audience just like everyone else.
Jones will offer all credit to God once he’s done dismantling his opponent, but what happens in the cage is largely due to hours and hours of watching tape, brutal training sessions with trainers Greg Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn and a curious mind that stays active outside the confines of the gym.
Some fighters scoff at the idea of watching film, as if it’s uncool to study your opponents because fighters are supposed to just get in the cage and let things unfold how they will.
Not Jones. He is a voracious watcher of film; long after his striking, grappling or wrestling sessions are over, Jones can still be found watching film at the gym or on his phone. By the time the actual fight rolls around, everything his opponent does is second nature, which allows him to focus solely on himself because the reactions happen naturally.
“If you have pride in not watching tapes, I think you’re silly. I watch tape as much as I can. I get into it, man. When I go in for a clinch, I know which side I will naturally have my head on. I know which side my opponent has a tendency to put his head on,” he says. “When it’s time to go down for a takedown, I know which side my opponent will probably be more open for when he’s trying to defend. I know which punch is his favorite. I know which hand is more powerful. I know that when he tries to take me down, I know what side his head will be on and which side his head will not be on.
“In knowing all of these things, I have more detailed training and more detailed tactics. And it results, for me, in a dominant performance.”
The champion enjoys dominating his opponents in the strongest area of their game, as there is no greater pleasure than utilizing someone’s greatest strength to beat him convincingly.
Imagine the feelings coursing through Chael Sonnen’s head last March when Jones took him down easily. Rushing in and taking someone down and smothering him? That was Sonnen’s game, and yet, there was Jones doing it to him.
On Countdown to UFC 165—the hype show that typically precedes UFC pay-per-view events—Gustafsson, a fantastic striker, was bemused by the idea of Jones attempting to stand and trade strikes with him. He actually laughs at the concept, which would be significant if only it weren’t historically inaccurate.
Jones thrives on breaking the spirit of his opponent, and where’s the fun in taking someone down and elbowing him into pieces?
Still, Jones is fine with Gustafsson’s confidence because he believes the Swede will need it on Saturday night.
“I think his psychology is in the right place. He needs to be confident. As the No. 1 contender, you have accomplished a great deal,” he says. “To make it to the UFC, that’s something that many fighters in the world never accomplish.
“And when they get a title challenge, they have every right to be confident. I think it’s great that he’s confident. But that doesn’t mean that he’s worked harder than me.”
For all the perpetual talk of heavyweights and Anderson Silva and Chris Weidman, Jones acknowledges that he wants to be something like the Floyd Mayweather Jr. of MMA—someone who establishes a level of dominance unseen in his generation that will leave a lasting legacy.
Not content with merely being good or even great, Jones wants to be legendary. His career goal is to walk away from the sport having never been booted from the UFC for losses and to leave a mark that resonates with future generations of fans.
His Twitter profile photo reveals more about him than anything else we’ve seen, and it also rings with truth. It is a lion on the prowl, waiting for its next victim. It is no accident that the picture has remained his calling card for so long.
“I am a predator. I fight against the toughest men in the world, and I’m one of the better guys to do it, which means I have to have a certain kind of psychology that’s more than me,” Jones acknowledges.
And what of that psychology? What makes him so different than everybody else? What is it that has him approaching all-time greatness at the tender age of 26 years old, still not quite in his prime and with many years of excellence ahead?
“It’s a confident one, a confident psychology. It’s a psychology based on victory and dominance and greatness,” he says. “Being a winner. Hard work. Champion. I have the psychology of a winner. It is not something I was born with, but it’s something I have learned.
“I embrace fighting, but I embrace practice. That is who I am.”
Under the still-dormant lights of Fremont Street, illuminated with only the waning rays of dusk that peaked through towering hotel and casino buildings, competitors for the Lion Fight 11 event weighed in on the main stage in front of The D Hotel and Casino. Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino and Cosmo Alexandre each made their weight and are now officially ready for the nationally televised muay thai bouts set for Friday, Sept. 20.