{"id":314818,"date":"2019-05-28T06:19:54","date_gmt":"2019-05-28T13:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=314818"},"modified":"2019-05-28T06:19:54","modified_gmt":"2019-05-28T13:19:54","slug":"alexander-gustafsson-says-groin-strike-hindered-him-in-jon-jones-rematch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/alexander-gustafsson-says-groin-strike-hindered-him-in-jon-jones-rematch\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexander Gustafsson says groin strike hindered him in Jon Jones rematch"},"content":{"rendered":"

At UFC 232 in late December, Alexander Gustafsson and Jon Jones stepped into the Octagon for a rematch years in the making. Just as it was in their first fight, which Jones won via controversial decision, the light heavyweight title was on the line in this second chapter.<\/p>\n

In the end, this rematch was much less competitive than the original, as Jones dominated Gustafsson to a third-round TKO.<\/p>\n

Speaking on The MMA Hour recently, Alexander Gustafsson looked back on this loss, and did not shy away from criticizing his own performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a really bad performance that I did, and I just, I wasn\u2019t myself really,\u201d Gustafsson said (via MMA Fighting<\/a>). \u201cI just went in there and I tried to stick to the gameplan and everything, but no, he just found a way very early to neutralize my game and he put me away strong.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just hate to lose, but it\u2019s a sport and Jon is the best guy out there. I don\u2019t know. I think I could\u2019ve done much better, but it is what it is, and I just take it as a man. It\u2019s a sport, and even if I had my third title shot and I lost the third one, I\u2019m still not feeling bad about it or anything like that. Life moves on, I have a family at home, so I\u2019m just [going to] keep doing what I\u2019m doing and take the next fight and the next fight after that, and start from scratch a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Alexander Gustafsson is reluctant to make excuses for this loss, he admits his game plan \u2014 and his ability to move \u2014 were joggled by a mid-fight groin strike that caused him incredible pain. More pain than he’d ever felt in a fight previously, to be precise.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just didn\u2019t perform like I used to,\u201d Gustafsson said. \u201cI didn\u2019t have the footwork going. And I have no excuses, it\u2019s not that. It\u2019s just like, after when he got me with that knee, I couldn\u2019t really find the rhythm again. I just, I couldn\u2019t move like I did before. I just had a lot of pain after that, and I\u2019ve never had that type of pain in my career before in a fight. Of course, you have pain, you get shots from everywhere and you get back, you just keep pushing. But he just stopped me right there, and I tried to move, work it with my footwork, try to kick him or attack, be explosive. But none of that worked. I just couldn\u2019t with my groin.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s basically it, and he took me down. Nobody can hold me down.\u00a0Nobody<\/em>\u00a0can hold me down. Not DC, not Jon. Nobody. When he took me down there and when he finished me, I couldn\u2019t move because of my groin. He just passed, he just went to half guard and just went up and did the crucifix stuff on me \u2014 and nobody does that to me. I wasn\u2019t 100 percent. I just felt that I had so much pain in my groin that I couldn\u2019t really get back into my rhythm again. And with that said, I don\u2019t use this as an excuse or anything like that. He did what he had to do to beat me, and Jon is the best guy out there, so I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m thinking about that loss nowadays. It is what it is and I just move forward now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alexander Gustafsson will return to the Octagon opposite a fellow Jon Jones victim in Anthony Smith this Saturday in the main event of UFC Stockholm.<\/p>\n

This article first appeared on\u00a0<\/i>BJPENN.COM<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0on 5\/27\/2019. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At UFC 232 in late December, Alexander Gustafsson and Jon Jones stepped into the Octagon for a rematch years in the making. Just as it was in their first fight, which Jones won via controversial decision, the light heavyweight title was on the line in this second chapter. In the end, this rematch was much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54430,"featured_media":296362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10129,39610],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nAlexander Gustafsson says groin strike hindered him in Jon Jones rematch | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Alexander Gustafsson says he was hindered by an inadvertent knee to the groin in his December rematch with light heavyweight champ Jon Jones.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/alexander-gustafsson-says-groin-strike-hindered-him-in-jon-jones-rematch\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" 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