MMAjunkie’s 2013 MMA Awards: Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson named Fight of the Year

This week MMAjunkie recognizes MMA’s greatest achievements from the past year. We’re honoring fighters in six categories as part of MMAjunkie’s 2013 MMA Awards. MMAjunkie writers and radio hosts provided a list of finalists, and MMAjunkie readers voted for the winners this past week. Today, we announce MMAjunkie’s Fight of the Year.

Monday, Jan. 6: Comeback Fighter of the Year – Robbie Lawler
Tuesday, Jan. 7: Breakthrough Fighter of the Year – Travis Browne
Wednesday, Jan. 8: Submission of the Year – Anthony Pettis def. Benson Henderson
Thursday, Jan. 9: Knockout of the Year – Chris Weidman def. Anderson Silva
Today: Fight of the Year – Jon Jones def. Alexander Gustafsson
Saturday. Jan. 11: Fighter of the Year – TBA

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Fight of the Year

Final voting: Jon Jones def. Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 165 (38%), Mark Hunt vs. Antonio Silva at UFC Fight Night 33 (24%), Gilbert Melendez def. Diego Sanchez at UFC 166 (21%), Wanderlei Silva def. Brian Stann at UFC on FUEL TV 8 (8%), Eddie Alvarez def. Michael Chandler at Bellator 106 (6%), Dennis Bermudez def. Matt Grice at UFC 157 (3%)

To a lot of us who had followed the careers of both UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones and top contender Alexander Gustafsson, the main event of UFC 165 didn’t seem like it would be terribly competitive.

In one corner was perhaps the most naturally gifted young UFC champion, an MMA Mozart who made his UFC debut a little less than five months after his first pro fight. In the other was a tall Swedish dude who, you know, was tall. So he had that going for him, and the UFC made sure to remind us at every opportunity.

Maybe the best thing you could say about the match-up was that finally, after two consecutive bouts against puffed-up middleweights, Jones would get a chance to push around someone his own size. What we may not have realized at the time was just how capable Gustafsson was of pushing back on that rainy September night in Toronto.

We got our first glimpse in the opening round. A grazing right hand from Gustafsson caught Jones just above the right eye as he attempted to slip the punch, splitting him open wide. The fight was less than five minutes old, and the massive favorite was suddenly bleeding into his own eye. As the crowd realized what had happened, you could feel the surprise drifting over them in waves.

For Jones, the real surprise was Gustafsson’s boxing ability. With other opponents, he’d always managed to slip just out of reach, keeping them at bay with kicks and the constant threat of spinning elbows and Greco-Roman throws. But right away Gustafsson was different. Jones would try to lean out of the way, but the Swede’s punches just kept following him until he ran out of room. Jabs, uppercuts, straight rights. One after another they bounced off the champion’s head.

When Jones tried to respond with the takedowns that had always been his Get Out of Jail Free card, he found that Gustafsson wasn’t so easy to bring to the floor. In fact, Gustafsson even had some wrestling offense of his own. Not only did he stuff 10 of Jones’ 11 takedown attempts, he also became the first fighter to take the champ down inside the UFC octagon.

Fortunately for Jones, he had more than takedowns in his toolbox. From the opening seconds of the bout, he chopped away at Gustafsson with kicks from all angles, attacking the legs, body and head of the challenger. Although Gustafsson seemed to walk right through them in the early going, near the end of the fourth, he appeared to feel the effects all at once. Gustafsson was slowing down. That’s when a spinning back elbow from Jones in the final minute of the round caught him squarely on the skull, sending him backpedaling for safety as Jones closed in.

Gustafsson would survive that round, but he continued to fade in the fifth. Jones, on the other hand, wasn’t going anywhere. He came at the challenger with elbows, knees and kicks until it was all Gustafsson could do to hold on and wait for the final horn. By the time it sounded, both fighters were battered and bloody, with Jones barely able to talk through badly swollen lips. As the scores were read aloud, the two light heavyweights stood frozen in the center of the cage until they heard it – “and still UFC light heavyweight champion.”

All Gustafsson could do was turn away with what looked to be an exhausted full-body sigh.

Was it the right call? Depends who you ask. One thing everyone seemed to agree on as they filtered out of Toronto’s Air Canada Centre that night was that they’d just witnessed a far better fight than they were expecting, maybe even the fight of the year. Not that either Jones or Gustafsson seemed to realize it at the time. They were too busy getting shuffled off to the hospital, where at least they’d find time for one last photo op together.

Runner-up: Mark Hunt vs. Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva

On the highly unofficial Insane-O-Meter, this wild heavyweight brawl might have Jones and Gustafsson beat for eye-popping moments and brain-shattering blows. But, once again, synthetic testosterone rears its ugly head.

It’s impossible to separate the five-round battle from what followed later, when we learned that Silva had secretly been granted a therapeutic-use exemption for testosterone, yet had still come in with elevated testosterone levels caused, or so he claimed, by bad advice from the doctor regulating his dosages.

It was still an incredible fight, and somehow it felt like a draw was the perfect ending to a brutal back-and-forth fight, but the ensuing drug test failure can’t help but leave a bad, though all too familiar, taste in many people’s mouths.