News Alexander Gustafsson: The Fighting Viking

[Buff]

Gus was never my friend.

One sparrow doesn't make it summer.

 

[RightToBareKnuckles]

There's no fight - We are cool as a leaf floating in the wind^^

 

[Spath]

Gustafsson was one of the fighters I followed more. He is a big guy, but fought like he’s a WW. Moved around a lot, had fast crisp hands and was surprisingly good grappler. Gus was able to decide when to engage in grappling and when ”anti-grapple” and surprised a few fighters with takedowns of his own!

His decline was fast and ugly. I feel like he made a fool of himself with his last few appearances. Looked so deflated, broken.. like he was not ready to fight at all. Bleh.

I’ll catch the video later

 

[StonedLemur]

He fought DC just fine after losing to Bones. Another one of the greatest fights of all time. He lost but he was the same fighter he was before that.

And he smoked Glover, that win still holds up.

 

[Melas Chasma]

That article is 3.5 years old. Gus has fought, and lost badly, twice after the Smith loss.

Anyway, I definitely admire his skills and toughness, however IMO, one of the following statements has to be true.

1.) Gus overachieved given his skillset and was a little overrated. While skilled on the feet and decent on the ground, his standup was not good enough to deal with the best and his ground skills could be exploited if his TD defense didn't hold up.
2.) After the Jones loss, Gus was completely broken BOTH mentally and physically when he was just shy of 32 years old. A sub loss to an old Werdum at HW is somewhat excusable but for a top level fighter, a sub loss to Anthony Smith and quick KO to Krylov are not excusable.

He actually underperformed most of his career. The Glover fight showed a glimpse of his best and potential but other than that fight he never performed on a level he skill wise could have.

 

[UWPguy]

He actually underperformed most of his career. The Glover fight showed a glimpse of his best and potential but other than that fight he never performed on a level he skill wise could have.

Then you must be more inclined to agree with point number 2.

I realized I didn't specify it but the 2nd Jones loss is what I meant. Anyone who followed Gus' career would have understood that though.

He definitely showed he could compete at the elite level, I was actually quite impressed with his performance against DC as well as Glover. It's kind of a question whether he was elite and sometimes underachieved or was he merely "great" and sometimes rose to the occasion of being elite. I suppose it's 6 of one, half dozen of another type of thing and could be argued about endlessly.

I am inclined to think he was elite, sometimes underachieved, and was just mentally and physically spent after the 2nd Jones loss.

 

[Melas Chasma]

Then you must be more inclined to agree with point number 2.

Ofc, it was obvious to everyone he had nothing left at that point. Though, its difficult to say how he would have performed against Jones in the rematch had he not injured his groin in the first exchange of the fight.

I realized I didn't specify it but the 2nd Jones loss is what I meant. Anyone who followed Gus' career would have understood that though.

There is no-one on this forum who has followed his career more closely than me.

I am inclined to think he was elite, sometimes underachieved, and was just mentally and physically spent after the 2nd Jones loss.

And you are right about that. The only point I wanted to make about him skill wise was that he was one of those fighters who was known to perform better in the gym than in the spotlight. The Glover fight was the only time he was able to somewhat relax and enjoy performing. This is what we miss around 2013-2018: