The comparisons between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson have been made for a long time now – Two twenty-something explosive, athletic and entertaining fighters that have almost had identical rises to the top.
Jones made the giant leap from prospect to champion in the blink of an eye when his former friend and training partner Rashad Evans was forced out of his title bout last year giving him the chance to become the ruler of the 205-pound landscape defeating Mauricio “Shogun” Rua.
That win coupled with submissions of top-ten allies Quinton Jackson, Lyoto Machida and Ryan Bader made for the most incredible year a fighter has ever had in this sports short history.
Gustafsson capped off his successful run in 2011 with three wins to his credit and continued his run through the division last night battering top-ranked light-heavyweight Thiago Silva over fifteen minutes.
There was a lot of pressure on the shoulders of the 6-foot-5 Swede facing his toughest opponent to date and doing so on the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s first expedition into his home land as the main draw for the locals.
The Swedish prodigy was in the driver’s seat from start to finish, dropping his Brazilian foe with a powerful uppercut early in the fight and picked him apart for the rest of the round with a series of punches, kicks and ground-and-pound combinations to impress the 15,000 people in Stockholm.
With his fifth straight victory inside the most talent stacked 205-pound division out there he has cemented his spot as a top-ten fighter in his weight-class and social media sites lit up with suggestions of the Alliance MMA product to be at the front of the cue for the winner of next weekend’s grudge-match between Jones and Evans.
Is Gustafsson ready to contest for championship gold? Not yet.
Since Jones had his meteoric rise to the top of the ranks viewers have clamored for another young gun to step up to challenge him since he is tearing through everyone that he’s stepped in the cage with to date.
Originally people placed their hope in four-time All-American wrestler Phil Davis as their horse but a one-sided loss to Rashad Evans cooled his jets so now they’ve thrown all their eggs in the basket of this talented Swede.
You can’t deny that Gustafsson is an extraordinary talent, in a short time frame he made the jump from preliminary card player to dead-set threat but at 25-years-of-age he still has a lot of room for improvement before he’s ready to contest for championship gold.
Fauxy’s got it right.
I think you cannot deny that he is a top-ten light-heavyweight right now but I don’t see a problem in getting him two or three more wins before he steps up to the plate, too many good prospects get thrown to the wolves and it takes them a while to recover.