Yesterday (Dec. 23), Jon Jones was embroiled in controversy once again regarding an “atypical” drug test administered by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), but he will be able to put his issues behind him this Saturday at UFC 232 when he makes his return to competition when he takes on Alexander Gustafsson for what will be the vacant light heavyweight championship.
One thing from Jones’s past, however, that he does not want to move on from is the fact that he was declared the winner of his first fight with Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 165. Over the years, Jones and Gustafsson’s first fight has been in hot dispute, with many people claiming that Gustafsson was the rightful winner of the first bout. Gustafsson himself has echoed this narrative, with the Swede holding that he was the true winner of his first battle against Jon Jones as well.
Last week, Jon Jones took to Instagram to provide some objective data about the first contest against Gustafsson, as well as each of his other fights:
The image is of a bar graph of the striking disparity been Jones and each of his previous opponents (yes, including Matt Hamill), and in each bout, Jon Jones was found to have outstruck his opponent. In the case of Alexander Gustafsson, Jon Jones outstruck Gustafsson 134 to 110 for the bout. Jon Jones also outstruck Gustafsson in each of the five rounds of the bout. In spite of these numbers, don’t expect the debate to die down on who won the first right, given the fact that it has persisted for five years now and running. The best way for Jones to make his case now is to run it back and to win in more convincing fashion at UFC 232.
Do you believe the graph presented by Jon Jones should close the argument on who really won the first fight between Jones and Gustafsson?
