If it sounds like I’m underselling the UFC 192 main event that pitted newly-crowned light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier against former title challenger Alexander Gustafsson, it’s only because the five round affair was a fight that simply needs to be seen to be appreciated. I could tack on any number of adjectives to the fight, I could call it a “grinder” or a “war” or a “blood-soaked battle of wills,” but the truth is, Cormier vs. Gustafsson was simply an example of championship-level MMA at its finest.
That DC vs. Lusty Gusty came at the tail end of a main card that saw all five of its fights go the distance is a testament to its greatness, so check out all the highlights from the action-packed main event (and the rest of the card as well), courtesy of UFC on FOX.
If it sounds like I’m underselling the UFC 192 main event that pitted newly-crowned light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier against former title challenger Alexander Gustafsson, it’s only because the five round affair was a fight that simply needs to be seen to be appreciated. I could tack on any number of adjectives to the fight, I could call it a “grinder” or a “war” or a “blood-soaked battle of wills,” but the truth is, Cormier vs. Gustafsson was simply an example of championship-level MMA at its finest.
That DC vs. Lusty Gusty came at the tail end of a main card that saw all five of its fights go the distance is a testament to its greatness, so check out all the highlights from the action-packed main event (and the rest of the card as well), courtesy of UFC on FOX.
Really, this highlight does little justice for what was easily one of the best fights of the year, and Gustafsson’s second brilliant-but-just-shy-of-winning performance against one of the greatest fighters in the sport today. If only he didn’t have to look like his face had been run through a meat grinder after each one of these performances.
In the co-main event of the evening, the evolution of Ryan Bader continued via a hard-fought, if one-sided decision win over former champ Rashad Evans. While “Suga” looked far fresher than you would expect for a guy who has spent the past two years on the shelf battling various injuries, he was simply a step behind “Darth” on Saturday. The TUF 8 winner was able to land first, utilizing a newfound and deadly accurate jab, and even outwrestle the TUF 1 winner consistently, and while I don’t think the win was enough to convince anyone that Bader stands a chance against Cormier or Jon Jones, it was an impressive performance nonetheless.
The unfortunate removal of Johny Hendricks from UFC 192 bumped a flyweight tilt between former title challengers Joseph Benavidez and Ali Bagautinov up to the main card, and they…more or less did not take advantage of it. In a smart, technical performance from the Team Alpha Male veteran that was routinely booed by the crowd, Benavidez utilized a slight speed advantage to keep the Dagestani consistently off balance and chasing en route to a unanimous decision win. Not much else to say about this one, what with both guys chances of receiving another shot at Mighty Mouse falling in the “Slim to none” category.
The full results for UFC 192 are below.
Main card
Daniel Cormier def. Alexander Gustafsson via split decision
Ryan Bader def. Rashad Evans via unanimous decision
Ruslan Magomedov def. Shawn Jordan via unanimous decision
Joseph Benavidez def. Ali Bagautinov via unanimous decision
Julianna Pena def. Jessica Eye via unanimous decision
Undercard
Yair Rodriguez def. Dan Hooker via unanimous decision
Albert Tumenov def. Alan Jouban via first-round KO
Adriano Martins def. Islam Makhachev via first-round KO
Rose Namajunas def. Angela Hill via sub (rear-naked choke)
Sage Northcutt def. Francisco Trevino via first-round TKO
Sergio Pettis def. Chris Cariaso via unanimous decision
Derrick Lewis def. Viktor Pesta via third-round TKO
Daniel Cormier’s first title defense was very nearly a disaster. After a strong start, the former Olympian faltered, abandoning his wrestling game in favor of slugging it out with the Swedish striker Alexander Gustafsson for four of the five rounds.&nb…
Daniel Cormier‘s first title defense was very nearly a disaster. After a strong start, the former Olympian faltered, abandoning his wrestling game in favor of slugging it out with the Swedish striker Alexander Gustafsson for four of the five rounds.
That strategy proved to be a mistake.
Gustafsson left his mark, both on Cormier‘s face and on at least one of the judges, falling just short of taking the championship across the Atlantic. It was clearly a close fight—but most of the media and two of three judges scored in favor of the champion.
As fans, we tend to view a fight in its totality. When the final bell rings you tend to have a feeling about who won and who lost. But cageside, fights are scored in five-minute increments. Dominating a round and eking it out, while leaving very different impressions with fans, are scored equally.
We’ll score the fight the same way judges do, looking at each round with the power of hindsight to see what really happened. When a fight is this close, it’s important to go back over it minute-by-minute, in painstaking detail, to answer the question everyone ponders after a mega-fight. Did the right man leave the cage with the UFC championship belt?
Round 1
While announcer Joe Rogan hyped Gustafsson‘s length and serious reach advantage, Cormier goes about the business of mitigating that advantage with inside leg kicks. He might be short and have short arms too, but using his feet gave him the ability to reach out and touch Gustafsson.
At the 4:21 mark, Cormier walked through a right hand to take his first wrestling shot of the night. He pushed Gustafsson into the cage with a single leg and used a high crotch to lift his opponent high into the air and slam him hard on the mat as the crowd roared.
“That is why wrestling is the most important aspect of MMA,” Rogan said. “If you can do that to a game, it changes the whole ballgame.”
Cormier floated over and secured solid control. Gustafsson eventually managed full guard and at the 3:06 mark even appeared to be about to get back to his feet—had his opponent been anyone but Daniel Cormier he very well might have.
Gustafsson did a brilliant job of defending himself on the ground, controlling Cormier‘s head and wrists. The champion was able to land a number of short shots but couldn’t ever wind up and land anything of real significance.
His best work, instead, showcased his status as a mean son of a gun. He ground his forearm into Gustafsson‘s face and covered his mouth with his hand, making breathing hard. He might not have been able to hurt Gustafsson—but he did his best to make him suffer.
At 1:50, Gustafsson threw up a lazy triangle attempt and Cormier rolled him over and ended up in side control.
“This is not good for Gustafsson,” Rogan roared, but things worked out fine for the Swede. Cormier lost control of his opponent and the challenger made it to his feet and proceeded to stick a left-right combo in Cormier‘s face.
The round ended with Cormier lunging with a right hand. He landed, but it showed clearly the lengths he would need to go to in order to score on his bigger foe. After a weak Gustafsson shot, Cormier slipped and the bell rang as the two traded punches after Cormier scrambled to his feet.
The Verdict
Round 2
Cormier‘s corner encouraged him to feint and throw punches in combination. Thus far in the fight he’d thrown only single shots to little effect.
Although unlikely, it seemed to be Gustafsson who’d heard that sage advice. The challenger opened the round more aggressively, throwing a left-right combination and mixing in a shot to the body and a leg kick.
At 4:26, Gustafsson attempted to time a shot by Cormier that never comes. The huge uppercut he tried to counter with hit nothing but air. But it also, almost certainly, stuck in Cormier‘s head. After dominating the first round with his wrestling attack, he almost never returned to it for the rest of the fight.
A scrum and a short left hand left Cormier bloodied. “There’s blood under the right eye of the champion,” Mike Goldberg said. The disadvantage didn’t slow Cormier down and at the 3:57 mark Gustafsson literally turned and ran from Cormier, eventually resetting in the center of the cage.
He met a Cormier shot with a hard knee and surprised the champion with a takedown of his own. Though the wrestler made it to his feet immediately, he was greeted with a stinging Gustafsson punch for his trouble.
“He hurt him with a right hand,” Rogan exclaimed in classic Rogan style, predicting trouble that never came. Instead, Cormier recovered almost instantly and grabbed Gustafsson in a single collar tie, a move that ultimately decided this fight. Cormier, as we saw in the Anthony Johnson fight, is hard to hurt.
Cormier takes another shot at 3:10, but Gustafsson defended nicely and cracked him with a nice elbow to the dome. The wrestler, however, was able to push Gustafsson into the cage and was working him over when the Swede once again ran away.
The two men stood on the Monster Energy logo and exchanged punches, with Cormier landing several for Gustafsson‘s one. “Those uppercuts by DC were excellent,” Rogan said.
With just over a minute remaining, Cormier landed a left hand at the end of a combination that snapped Gustafsson‘s head back. Gustafsson‘s response, again, was to run. It might be tactically smart to remove yourself from disadvantageous positions, but judges notice that stuff too.
The round closed with a Gustafssontakedown, which surprised both the announcers and Cormier.
“That’s a big statement late in this round,” Goldberg said.
“That’s a big statement period. That’s a shock to Daniel Cormier,” Rogan said.
The Verdict
Round 3
Cormier continued to be the aggressor, pursuing the taller challenger relentlessly. The action slowed noticeably in the early stages. Gustafsson landed a hard uppercut following a feint but Cormier scored a telling blow of his own, a leaping right hand that busted open his opponent’s nose.
Gustafsson met the challenge with a hard right hand of his own, but found himself trapped in Cormier‘s clinch, brutalized by a series of right hands. Gustafsson attempts another takedown and Cormier meets it with a hard sprawl, his pride, perhaps, stung by being put on his back earlier in the fight.
Gustafsson kept the champion at bay for a time, moving and surviving but not doing enough to make it feel like he was winning. At 1:37 Cormier caught a kick and cracked him with a right, ending in the clinch and once again landing a series of uppercuts.
“He’s hanging in there Mike,” Rogan said. “We learned about his heart and will in that Jones fight.”
As the round came to a close, Gustafsson took advantage of a single moment of Cormier lethargy with a leaping right knee, following it with a left hook and tight shot group of punches as the champion fell to the mat.
Cormier had the wherewithal to grab a hold of a single leg for dear life and ended up riding out the round in the clinch. But this wasn’t the offensive clinch he’d used to take control of the fight. His goal here was simply survival.
“What. A. Fight!” Rogan exclaimed as the bell rang.
The Verdict
Round 4
“You’re not tired,” Gustafsson‘s coach Andreas Micheal told him in the corner between rounds. “You’re not tired.”
The challenger attempted to take that to heart, landing body kicks with both legs early and keeping his jab in Cormier‘s face. It is a punch that doesn’t have much snap, but he never stopped throwing it, occasionally following with a right hand.
“DC’s trying to spring into his punches to handle this distance,” Goldberg explained. It was a tactic that worked only on occasion.
Cormier remained the aggressor, but a physically limited one. He had trouble reaching Gustafsson‘s head from distance, often resorting to leaping in the air and throwing an odd backhand with his right hand that wouldn’t have amounted to much even had it landed.
Gustafsson wilted a bit under the pressure at 3:37, trying once again to run away and reset. This time, however, Cormier chased him, landing some solid punches while Gustafsson continued to mistake the fight for a track meet.
Just over halfway through the round there’s a strange paradigm shift. Cormier looked up at the clock and Gustafsson responded by becoming the aggressor. Cormier began circling the cage with Gustafsson chasing and landing a one-two.
Eventually the two return to their normal pattern, Cormier chasing and Gustafsson moving around the outside with a jab and a looping left hook he disguised effectively as a jab throughout. On his feet Cormier looked more desperate than in control, chasing, but mostly ineffectively.
“Daniel Cormier has not looked for a takedown in forever,” Goldberg said, underscoring Cormier‘s shrinking offensive attack.
With just over a minute left in the round, Gustafsson shot a takedown, then landed a knee in the clinch when Cormier defended. After a Gustafsson combination, he retreated with Cormier giving chase. The champion ended the round with a good straight round hand and a combination of blows that mostly missed their mark.
“It’s flurries like that that win rounds,” Rogan said.
The Verdict
Round 5
In the corner, “Crazy” Bob Cook asked Cormier for a takedown. Across the way, Gustafsson‘s team knew what was up.
“He’s going to try to take you down now,” Michael told his charge.
The two men begin the round with a show of respect. Cormier lands a stinging right hand early and followed up with one of the leg kicks that had bugged Gustafsson in the first round.
The challenger continued to move around the cage, but he did little to show anyone he actually wanted to win the fight. Midway through the round he, once again, turned and ran from Cormier. This time he was met by lusty boos from the crowd.
This isn’t how you win title fights.
Cormier once again secured a single tie, but this time Cormier grabbed a hold of his right hand to mostly prevent the uppercut. It only took him 22:53 to come up with a counter for the move that defined the bout.
With just over a minute left in the fight, Cormier landed one more solid right hand. The two have been relatively active throughout, but not especially effective. As for much of the fight, Cormier landed the more telling blows.
“(Gustafsson)’s just so weary Mike,” Rogan explained.
Gustafsson, however, wasn’t done yet. He scored a right hand and a knee with a minute left. The bout closed with both fighters in their respective elements, Cormier throwing punches in the clinch and Gustafsson responding with a final solid knee.
“Outstanding,” Goldberg exclaimed as the final bell rang.
The Verdict
If it felt like a close fight, it’s because it was. Only two rounds were definitive—the first and final were clearly Cormier‘s. The middle rounds could reasonably be scored to either man, even the third where Cormier was knocked down by a knee and a left hook.
I scored the fight a draw—but that’s a best-case scenario for Gustafsson. He fought a bout designed to ensure survival, not victory. In the end, the judges punished him for that.
Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.
UFC 192 was almost a tale of two halves. The prelims were stellar, with five of the seven bouts being finished in violent fashion. The main card slowed things down as every fight went to the scorecards, but the main event clash for the light heavyweigh…
UFC 192 was almost a tale of two halves. The prelims were stellar, with five of the seven bouts being finished in violent fashion. The main card slowed things down as every fight went to the scorecards, but the main event clash for the light heavyweight title got everyone back on their feet.
Typically following an event, the suggestions for the next fights come in about 24 hours, but there was a lot to process with UFC 192 from Houston. How should the UFC handle the prospects that won? And how about the title contenders who sit on the outside looking in?
Oftentimes it is not just a matter of who wins and loses on a particular event, but rather how they win or lose. What they show us inside the cage directly affects the path they take up the ranks in their respective divisions. A UFC matchmaker’s job is complex; Joe Silva and Sean Shelby have a lot to take in after the results in Houston.
Well, the recommendations have arrived. Here is how the UFC should handle the next bouts for the winners and losers of UFC 192.
Daniel Cormier showed his grit and toughness like never before, overcoming an incredible challenge from Alexander Gustafsson in a five-round slugfest to retain the light heavyweight title at UFC 192 in Houston on Saturday night.
The fight was so close …
Daniel Cormier showed his grit and toughness like never before, overcoming an incredible challenge from Alexander Gustafsson in a five-round slugfest to retain the light heavyweight title at UFC 192 in Houston on Saturday night.
The fight was so close that the judges couldn’t even agree on the outcome, producing a split-decision result in which Cormier won with scores of 49-46 and 48-47. One judge ruled it 48-47 in favor of Gustafsson, which wasn’t quite enough to pull off the upset.
As UFC notes, Cormier and Gustafsson took part in a bout that will immediately go down as a classic:
Cuts all over Gustafsson’s face and serious bleeding made it apparent that Cormier laid a beating on his opponent, but the same could be said of the champion. The Swedish challenger succeeded in turning the 25-minute bout into a dirty brawl, standing and striking to land numerous crushing blows to Cormier’s face.
When the dust settled and Cormier stood with the belt, he couldn’t help but laud his opponent for giving him quite the beating, per MMAFighting.com:
Based on Cormier’s comments after the fight, his title retention was far from easy.
Despite that, it seemed early on that Cormier was going to ground-and-pound his opponent into submission just as he’s done countless times to taller opponents. The 36-year-old notched an early takedown, ripping Gustafsson to the mat with force and making Round 1 a nasty affair on the ground.
As Motmaitre noted, keeping Gustafsson on the bottom was a big key to winning the fight:
Instead of keeping the fight on the mat where he had a decided advantage, however, Cormier proved unable to fight that way as the five rounds wore on. Gustafsson’s evasive abilities kept him standing, where he could punish Cormier with brutal punches and knees.
Along with some timely takedowns, Gustafsson fought his way back into it in the middle rounds. With the bout entering a fifth and final round that would decide the fight, UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman chimed in:
Gustafsson seemed intent on avoiding the final-round takedown in Round 5, but Cormier obliged and chose to punish his opponent’s face even further. The bleeding from Gustafsson’s face was so severe that the referee could have stopped the fight.
But the Swede held on in the final round, as the fight went to the judges’ scorecards that left him oh so close to a career-changing victory.
Regardless, Cormier heaped praise upon his opponent after the fight, per Chamatkar Sandhu of MMAJunkie.com:
While Cormier’s status as the light heavyweight champion is still secure after Saturday night, reasons cropped up to believe it will be short-lived. His struggles in dealing with Gustafsson’s power leave many believing that when (or if) Jon Jones makes his likely return, he won’t have trouble getting back his belt.
Still, that didn’t produce any reason to discount what Cormier has done in the time since, as Luke Thomas of MMAFighting.com noted:
There’s no telling what’s next for Gustafsson, who will likely once again need some extra time to heal and recover after taking another beating. The loss gives him three losses in his last four fights, although two have been tight affairs for the title.
Given his performance Saturday, it won’t be long until Gustafsson gets another crack at the belt. As for Cormier, he can at least enjoy several more months at the top.
The shadow of Jones obviously appeared over this fight and will continue to be a footnote to Cormier’s title until he puts that talk to rest by facing off against Bones for the second time.
Until then, it’s Cormier’s world in the light heavyweight spectrum of the UFC, and everyone else is just living in it.
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 thi…
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.
He had to battle past a treacherous task, but Daniel Cormier withstood a brutal beating from Alexander Gustafsson on Saturday night at UFC 192 in Houston to retain his light heavyweight title.
The main event lasted all five rounds, a whopping 25 minute…
He had to battle past a treacherous task, but Daniel Cormier withstood a brutal beating from Alexander Gustafsson on Saturday night at UFC 192 in Houston to retain his light heavyweight title.
The main event lasted all five rounds, a whopping 25 minutes of action that left viewers unable to look away as the two 205-pound menaces traded blows and grappled around the octagon. It was such a close fight that the judges couldn’t even agree, making it a split decision.
But in the end, Cormier got the nod when Bruce Buffer announced his name as the champion, per UFC:
The judges failed to come to a consensus after the fight. With scores of 49-46 and 48-47 in favor of Cormier and one score of 48-47 for Gustafsson, it could have easily been split the other way.
It wasn’t hard to see why the judges had a difficult time agreeing with one another. Aside from Cormier‘s lone loss in his UFC career to Jon Jones, he took his most brutal beating in his six-year pro career.
Early on, it appeared that Cormier was going to make good on his supreme advantage—the ground and pound. All of six inches shorter than his opponent, Cormier established that quickly with a Round 1 takedown, bloodying up Gustafsson in the process.
MMAFighting.com noted one instance where Cormier threw Gustafsson around like a rag doll:
But as the fight wore along and Cormier looked more fatigued, he seemed to abandon it altogether, as Matthew Campbell of WSFB noted:
Part of that was due to Gustafsson‘s impeccable takedown defense, as he dodged Cormier repeatedly and ran circles around him, defiantly avoiding any chance for Cormier to take him down. That allowed the Swede to make it a dirty fight, throwing hands and swelling up Cormier‘s right eye.
Even in the wake of a close defeat, Gustafsson‘s performance was worth lauding and nearly worth a win, as MMA History Today observed:
When the fight rolled into the late rounds and Cormier continued to prove unable to take Gustafsson down, it appeared to be anyone’s fight to win. But in what seemed like a winner-take-all Round 5, Cormier stepped up to the task and laid it all on the line.
With Gustafsson’s face dark red and severely cut up, all Cormier had to do was land a few more big blows in the final five minutes. He did just that, seeming to take the final round in convincing fashion.
That left him as a split-decision winner, but obviously worse for wear and acknowledging the fight he got from Gustafsson, per UFC:
“The Mauler” made good on his well-earned nickname, taking it to the light heavyweight champion in full force and nearly coming away with a long-awaited title. But just as was the case in 2013 against Jones, he came up inches short of glory.
The obvious question as to what’s next revolves around Jones himself, as it’s long been expected that the former champion will get his chance to return against Saturday’s winner. And unsurprisingly, Jones chimed in on social media before deleting it, but Danny Segura of MMAFighting.com captured it beforehand:
Before Cormier truly turns the page to get ready for a scintillating rematch with Jones, however, he reaped praise upon Gustafsson after a memorable fight, per Matt Erickson and Justin Park of MMAJunkie.com:
“Alexander Gustafsson is an absolute stud,” Cormier said. “He’s one of the best fighters in the world. The sport needs guys like Alexander Gustafsson who can go out there and lay it all on the line against the best fighters in the world.”
The fight with Gustafsson may end up helping Cormier in the long run, who learned to bring it against one of the best standing strikers in the sport. The way he fine-tuned his fighting style to beat him anyway, despite playing into his opponent’s strengths, was nothing short of amazing.
It will take even more for Cormier to be able to do the same against Jones, but after rising above a stiff test from the one man who has come closest to beating Jones, Cormier should be flying high despite taking a heavy beating.
