Media How Gus can beat Jones, a study of the first fight (w/ GIFs)

[hillelslovak87]

/thread

 

[Bluesbreaker]

How to beat Jones:

Don't have idiots for judges, like last time.

 

[RoyJonesJr]

Gus doesn't have the power and has less tools than Jones

Jones has been working on his boxing for a year + has all of his kicks


It's a favorable match up for Jones but Alex throws more combos now so he has that going for him.

 

[tramendous]

He should have ended some punch combos with a leg kick

I believe werdum has used this effectively

absolutely. Most guys cant do it because they don't have the reach but Gus is the same size as Jones and can do it from a safe distance. Jones doesn't check leg kicks. he just backs straight up.

 

[tramendous]

Gus doesn't have the power and has less tools than Jones

Jones has been working on his boxing for a year + has all of his kicks


It's a favorable match up for Jones but Alex throws more combos now so he has that going for him.

gus has more power in his punches than jones. hes hurt more people standing with punches than jones has.

 

[elwani]

In the first fight, Jon actually spends a large part of the fight in southpaw, but this presents a much better opportunity for Gus to land the jab-right cross than when Jon is in orthodox. This is because Jon continues to respond to the initial jab by stretching out his lead hand (right hand now in southpaw), backing up, and circling to his left. But since he's in southpaw, his lead shoulder no longer protects his head against Gus's right and he's circling into the right hand.

Here's Gus catching Jon with the right while Jon is in southpaw.

And here's Gus missing with the right while Jon is in southpaw.

What's the difference? The difference is footwork. In the first Gus shuffles forward while throwing the right. This allows him to cover distance and catch up to Jon as Jon is backing up. In the second Gus uses the much more traditional footwork of just stepping forward with the lead foot. In this case, Jon creating distance by backing up is enough to evade the strike.

So the lesson I think is use the jab cross when Jon is in southpaw, but make sure to use footwork that covers a lot of distance.

 

[thelovacluka]

The reach is what gets Joens saved many times.
Gus need to finish him 1st or 2nd before Jones adapts.

Also, last time, Gus's punches were not strong enough, he needs to get tad closer to have bigger effect..More combinations

 

[elwani]

This one is going to sound like a bad joke, but seriously I think Gus should eye poke the hell out of Jon, or at least use the exact same method that Jon uses which results in so many eye-pokes.

Looking at the fight more carefully, it's clear why Jon keeps eye poking his opponents. It's because his standard method of evasion is to put his lead hand in the opponent's face as he's backing up. I think his attitude is, if your eye happens to run into my fingers as I'm doing this, so be it, or maybe you become too afraid to chase after me because of the eye pokes which is also good for me.

Gus has a similar reach, use the same method, it's only fair. Whenever Jon comes in, put your hand in his face. After you throw a combo, put your hand in his face. If his eyes happen to run into your fingers, so be it. Play dirty against a dirty opponent.

 

[613]

In reality though, Gus had better success landing strikes to the head in the 4th and the 5th, than in earlier rounds. Gus landed many of his best punches in the last round.

This left hook in the 5th stunned Jones more than any other punch thrown by Gus, but the commentary (and so the audience) missed it.

This uppercut landed hard, but was also missed by commentary.

Luckily we got this beautiful picture from it, though.

This uppercut in the 5th was missed by commentary as well. You can see the impact on Jones chin :

More uppercuts in the 5th, Jones was just too tired to defend at this point:

Left hook rattles Jones at the start of the 5th, Rogan missed it:

Decent spinning elbow:

Some strikes in the last minute of the fight:







Basically my point is people remember the last round wrong, and that was because of Rogan's commentary was too obsessed on Gus being tired or Jones throwing his 6 head kicks which were all at least partially blocked by Gus. This gave people an impression Jones dominated the 5th even when the round was very close.

Most of these are just decent strikes that look better in slow motion. Gus landed better and more often in the early rounds. If these are the best strikes Gus landed all night then it must have been a shit night for Gus. Round 5 was not that close.

 

[VVarhead]

Hit the other guy a lot while not getting hit yourself would be my gameplan.

 

[Spath]

Wow, real analysis on ufc forums! A gift for all of us.

Some good points there. Jones has worked his hands a lot and he’ll be better prepared for Gus. That’s for sure.

I think Gustafsson is a nightmare match up for Jones for a few reasons.

- Gus is tall and has good reach, Jones isn’t fighting a Rashad-esque figure here.
- Gus has great mobility in cage, he really moves around and doesn’t just plod forward like many guys in the heavier divisions.
- Fast hands with good shot selection. Some guys are all about that one punch, say overhand right. Gus has a lot more than that and sets them up nicely. Needs different entries so Jones doesn’t figure him out and catch him with an elbow or a knee
- Takedown defense. This has a lot to do with his mobility, but let’s not underestimate the grappling skills that Gus has displayed before. Some get him down, none keep him there.

I also fully expect Gus to blast Jones with some uppercuts of fire! His uppercuts are a thing of a beauty. So fast, effortless, very little wind up and they seem to have more and more pop in those.

I’m with Gus and I hope he buries Jon. Let’s get the belt, Alexander!

 

[613]

How to beat Jones:

Don't have idiots for judges, like last time.

Don't be one of those fucking idiots. Even if you think Gus should have won, it was clearly close enough that Jones winning is not having "idiot judges". There is a reason almost every media outlet gave Jones the fight. And it certainly is not because Jones is popular lol

 

[Communion]

I thought for sure this thread would be 10 pages by this morning. Well I'm on the edge of my seat anyway.

 

[elwani]

As in the Roidhead part he had success with headkicks in the first fight he landed them at least 4 or 5 times clean he should have drilled them more during the camp and he should mix it up with body and head unlike the first fight where i dont know if he throw a single roundhouse kick to the body. Working the body to set up the head should be a good strategy for both of them

Jon actually did throw a roundhouse to the body, but Gus caught it and used it to take him down. After that he stopped throwing it.

And again when Jon threw a right leg kick from orthodox.

This might be why he threw so few of these, instead relying on inside leg kicks and head kicks.

 

[ocean size]

What Gus needs to do is low kick a lot more this time and look to land way more uppercut from the clinch exchanges, like DC was successful at doing.

I'd love to see some chopping low kicks.

 

[elwani]

Another observation. In the first fight, Gus was almost always successful whenever he kicked Jon from distance while moving, and he was almost never countered. There can be several reasons for this. One is the distance he can kick from. Another is that Jon had to focus on his boxing. And last Jon probably did not feel confident enough to risk a boxing exchange with Gus if he chose to counter with his hands.

If this continues to hold, then Gus should mix kicks from distance with his evasive footwork a lot more in the second fight. In the first fight, he simply rarely threw these kicks, often only in response to Jon kicking him. At worst, throwing more of these helps him score points with low risk. At best it hurts Jon and wears him down.

It is very possible to mix kicks from distance with evasive boxing footwork. The fight I always think of when I think of kicking from distance while using evasive footwork is the following (Kaoklai Kaennorsing vs Mighty Mo):

 

[ExitLUPin]

This eventually got him spinning back elbowed though

and could get him LHKd

 

[Broke Lester]

I'd love to see some chopping low kicks.

I'd like to see Jon's head punched clean off his neck. Honestly.

 

[Juice]

Gus was his best and still couldn't beat a handicapped, party animal, barely trained Jones.

Can't wait for Jones to flat out destroy overrated Gus.

 

[elwani]

Another observation. Gus is well known for his right upper counters. In the first fight, we saw that Jon was well prepared for this. Jon dodged by turning his head right and pulling it back, and in fact Gus rarely connected with the right uppercut counter...

...except when Gus had the collar tie and fixed Jon's head in place.

Jon has also shown himself vulnerable to this in the Cormier fights, and Gus would have an easier time controlling the collar tie since he's taller than Cormier.

Jon was also not able to take Gus down from the clinch in the first fight. So the recommendation is to use the collar tie and uppercut from the clinch a lot more.