Alexander Gustafsson vs. Anthony Johnson

UFC officials today announced the bout and said it’ll serve as a title eliminator. UFC on FOX 14 takes place Jan. 24 at Tele2 Arena in Stockholm. The main card airs on FOX following prelims on FOX Sports 1 and UFC Fight Pass. To accommodate the usual UFC on FOX main-card start time of 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT) in the U.S., the event takes place in the early-morning hours in Sweden. Tele2 Arena, which hosts the first international edition of UFC on FOX, can seat approximately 30,000 fans and will serve as just the second UFC stadium to date. The first, UFC 129, drew 55,724 to Toronto’s Rogers Centre in 2011. Gustafsson is ranked No. 2 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA light heavyweight rankings, and Johnson is No. 5. Gustafsson recently rebounded from a title loss to champion Jon Jones with a second-round TKO win over Jimi Manuwa in March. The 27-year-old Swede picked up “Fight of the Night” and “Performance of the Night” bonuses with the win, which moved him to 7-1 over his past eight fights. It also marked his 13th stoppage in 16 career wins. Johnson, meanwhile, is returning to competition after overcoming some legal troubles and being reinstated by the UFC. The 30-year-old, who’s settled in the 205-pound division after fighting as light as welterweight and as heavy as heavyweight, most recently fought in July at UFC on FOX 12, where he knocked out Antonio Rogerio Nogueira to earn his second consecutive win since returning to the octagon. The Gustafsson vs. Johnson winner faces either champ Jones or challenger Daniel Cormier, who headline UFC 182 on Jan. 3. wrote:

http://mmajunkie.com/2014/11/alexander-gustafsson-vs-anthony-johnson-slated-for-ufc-on-fox-14-in-sweden

guess we are really going to see what johnson is made of... if he gets past gus ill be shocked.

HOLY SHIT! This has tons of potential to be a great war.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if Johnson rolls right over him.
Nobody has been able to put Johnson in any kind of trouble whatsoever so far at 205. The "level of competiton" arguement was being used in the last few years to sort of discredit his dominance, but that doesn't apply anymore IMO. He's fought 2 legit, ranked UFC LHWs (Davis was even top 5) and made them both look absolutely stupid.
I'm not of the mindset that we are still waiting to see what he's made of and has yet to be tested. I'm of the mindset that he's unstoppable until proven otherwise. To me, the onus is on Gustaffson to prove that Johnson doesn't deserve to be here, not on Johnson to prove he does.

I'm pretty much in agreance with that. Rumble is nothing short of a fucking killer at 205!

The latest UFC on FOX 14 card now includes:

Alexander Gustafsson vs. Anthony Johnson
Dan Henderson vs. Gegard Mousasi
Matt Brown vs. Tarec Saffiedine

im not sold on rumble. the guys cardio is spotty. he tagged up an aging nog who looked like a senior citizen in the ring. phil davis just neutralizes people and that is it. if you could stop him from neutralizing you he wont win. he fought gus early in his career when gus really didnt have the necessary mma wrestling. phil davis is top 5 but he is nothing more than a gatekeeper to the 205 division. rumble johnson needs to be tested and gus is the perfect test for him. with that being said i have gus winning early submission.

Well one thing I didn't take into consideration at first was the possible size advantage Gus might have. They're both LHW's, but Rumble did in fact compete as a WW for several years, so after thinking about that I assumed Gus would be much taller and have a significantly longer reach than Johnson.
Well that doesn't appear to be the case. Johnson is listed at 6'2" with a 78" reach, and Gustafsson, depending on where you're getting the stats from, is listed either 6'4" or 6'5", with a reach somewhere between 79" and 81.5". It's a slight advantage, but not as much of one as I thought it would be.
I'm still going with Johnson. Gus has shown a great chin, so I won't say Johnson puts him away. But I think he catches Gus early and puts him on wobbly legs for a few seconds and Gus never fully recovers, leaving himself a step behind in the exchanges, and therefore getting rocked several times throughout the fight and taking tons of punishment.

Rumble by UD.

drainbamage wrote:

im not sold on rumble. the guys cardio is spotty. he tagged up an aging nog who looked like a senior citizen in the ring. phil davis just neutralizes people and that is it. if you could stop him from neutralizing you he wont win. he fought gus early in his career when gus really didnt have the necessary mma wrestling. phil davis is top 5 but he is nothing more than a gatekeeper to the 205 division. rumble johnson needs to be tested and gus is the perfect test for him. with that being said i have gus winning early submission.

This. I think Rumble has the potential to be a wrecking machine at 205 and so far he is on a good roll. I'm just not sold on it with wins over davis and nog. Now if these were wins against DC,gus,machida,souza,Henderson than i would have a harder time not buying into the hype. kind of like jones, jones not only came in and leveled all fighters but most of them were in the top ten even top 5 and did it with ease.

I don't think Rumble has shown any cardio issues since moving to 205. His cardio issues were in the past and i think that was from sucking so much weight.