Controversy
Jones vs. Gustafsson 1 Scorecard: Did Alexander Gustafsson Beat Jon Jones?
Gustafsson cut Jones, took him down and landed more to the head. Jones built his lead on leg kicks and won the last two rounds on every card. The judges split only on rounds 2 and 3.
Jones
GustafssonAt a glance
- ResultJones by unanimous decision - 48-47, 48-47, 49-46
- The judgesRichard Bertrand, Doug Crosby and Chris Lee, all for Jones; referee John McCarthy
- The splitAll three gave Gustafsson round 1 and Jones rounds 4 and 5; rounds 2 and 3 divided them
- The statsSignificant strikes 134-110 to Jones, 53 of them to the legs; head strikes 63-53 to Gustafsson; one takedown each
- The mediaFox Sports counted 11 of 12 outlets for Jones; CBS Sports was the one that scored it for Gustafsson
- Our card48-47 Jones
What was at stake
By September 2013 Jon Jones had made the light heavyweight title look easy. He was 18-1, his only loss a disqualification, and UFC 165 was his sixth title defence in a row. A win would give him the division record outright, one more than the five straight defences of Tito Ortiz. Only one of his title fights had gone the distance, a wide decision over Rashad Evans.
Alexander Gustafsson was 15-1, his one loss a submission against Phil Davis in 2010. He was also one of the few light heavyweights who could match Jones's frame - at 6'5" he was an inch taller than the champion - but few expected that to matter. The sportsbooks had Jones at around -800 and Gustafsson at +500 or longer.
The official scorecards
Each judge's card, round by round, from the official sheets released to Fox Sports; Bloody Elbow, citing MMA Junkie, reported the same rounds. Scores are written Jones first.
| Judge | R1 | R2 | R3 | R4 | R5 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Richard Bertrand | 9-10 | 10-9 | 9-10 | 10-9 | 10-9 | 48-47 |
| Doug Crosby | 9-10 | 9-10 | 10-9 | 10-9 | 10-9 | 48-47 |
| Chris Lee | 9-10 | 10-9 | 10-9 | 10-9 | 10-9 | 49-46 |
Referee: John McCarthy. Every round was scored 10-9. Bold marks the rounds on which the judges disagreed and Jones got the score.
The cards agree more than the reputation of the fight suggests. Every judge gave Gustafsson the first round and every judge gave Jones the last two. The whole argument sits in rounds 2 and 3. Bertrand gave Jones round 2 and Gustafsson round 3; Crosby did the opposite; Lee gave Jones both. For Gustafsson to win, one judge would have needed to give him both middle rounds, and none did.
Round by round
Round 1 - Gustafsson (all three judges)
The round that changed how people saw Jones. Gustafsson opened a cut over Jones's right eye with a punch and took him down - according to ESPN and Bloody Elbow, the first time anyone had done that to Jones in the UFC. He also stuffed all three of Jones's takedown attempts. The official count favours Jones, 28 significant strikes to 19, but 15 of those 28 were leg kicks; to the head Gustafsson led 8-5. Every judge gave him the round.
Round 2 - Jones 2-1 (Bertrand and Lee)
The closest round on paper. Jones kept kicking - 14 of his 26 significant strikes went to the legs - and out-landed Gustafsson 26-15 overall. Gustafsson again landed more to the head, 9-5, and stopped three more takedown attempts, leaving Jones without a takedown from six tries. Bleacher Report's round-by-round recap has Jones landing a head kick. Bertrand and Lee scored the round for Jones, Crosby for Gustafsson.
Round 3 - Jones 2-1 (Crosby and Lee)
Gustafsson landed straight right hands, and by the end of the round, ESPN and Bleacher Report both noted, the champion's right eye was swelling. The official numbers are almost level: Jones 29 significant strikes to Gustafsson's 26, with Gustafsson ahead to the head (14-11) and body (10-8) and Jones ahead only on leg kicks (10-2). Crosby and Lee gave the round to Jones, Bertrand to Gustafsson. FightMetric's own scoring system called it 10-10.
Round 4 - Jones (all three judges)
Gustafsson was doing well early in the round when Jones landed a spinning elbow that rocked him, then followed with a burst of strikes, as CBS Sports and Sherdog both describe it. For the first time Jones out-landed Gustafsson to the head, 17-15. After the round the cageside doctor looked at the cut over Jones's eye. McCarthy said in a 2020 interview that the doctor wanted to stop the fight and that he persuaded him to let it continue.
Round 5 - Jones (all three judges)
Jones finally completed a takedown, a double-leg, and he landed a head kick and a standing elbow. Gustafsson kept coming: he landed 17 strikes to the head against Jones's 15 and more total strikes, 28-25. But he failed on all four of his takedown attempts, and Jones had 25 seconds of control. All three judges gave it to Jones.
What the numbers say
The official statistics, round by round (Jones first):
| Round | Sig. strikes | Head | Legs | Total strikes | Takedowns | Control |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R1 | 28 – 19 | 5 – 8 | 15 – 7 | 28 – 19 | 0/3 – 1/1 | 0:05 – 0:13 |
| R2 | 26 – 15 | 5 – 9 | 14 – 3 | 26 – 15 | 0/3 – 0/1 | 0:05 – 0:02 |
| R3 | 29 – 26 | 11 – 14 | 10 – 2 | 30 – 26 | 0/0 – 0/1 | 0:00 – 0:05 |
| R4 | 27 – 26 | 17 – 15 | 7 – 2 | 28 – 26 | 0/3 – 0/1 | 0:22 – 0:00 |
| R5 | 24 – 24 | 15 – 17 | 7 – 0 | 25 – 28 | 1/2 – 0/4 | 0:25 – 0:00 |
| Total | 134 – 110 | 53 – 63 | 53 – 14 | 137 – 114 | 1/11 – 1/8 | 0:57 – 0:20 |
The headline number, 134 significant strikes to 110, is Jones's, and he led or tied it in every round. He was far more accurate too: 62% of his significant strikes landed against 38% of Gustafsson's, who threw 288 to Jones's 217. Neither man scored a knockdown.
But how Jones got there matters. Fifty-three of his 134 significant strikes were leg kicks, against 14 for Gustafsson. Take the legs away and the fight looks different: Gustafsson landed more to the head, 63-53, and more to the body, 33-28. He led to the head in four of the five rounds, every round but the fourth. That is why people who watched the same fight saw Gustafsson landing the shots that showed - the cut, the swelling - while the official count kept going Jones's way.
The wrestling is the other surprise. Jones completed one of his 11 takedown attempts, in the final round. Gustafsson landed one of eight, in the first. Neither man controlled the other for more than a minute in total.
The media mostly agreed with the judges. Fox Sports collected 12 outlets' scores after the fight: 11 had Jones winning, and the one exception was CBS Sports, 48-47 for Gustafsson. Fans were closer to an even split. When Fox Sports looked at the fan scorecards on MMADecisions, 50% of 242 had Jones winning, 43.4% Gustafsson and 6.6% a draw.
How we scored it
| Round | MMA.SOCIAL | Why |
|---|---|---|
| R1 | 10-9 Gustafsson | The cut, the takedown and the cleaner head strikes (8-5) outweighed Jones's 28-19 edge in significant strikes, more than half of it leg kicks. |
| R2 | 10-9 Jones | 26-15 in significant strikes and steady kicking; Gustafsson's 9-5 edge to the head was not enough on its own. |
| R3 | 10-9 Gustafsson | Ahead to the head and body, the punches that closed Jones's eye; Jones's 29-26 lead rested on ten leg kicks. |
| R4 | 10-9 Jones | The spinning elbow that hurt Gustafsson and the flurry after it, plus a 17-15 lead to the head. |
| R5 | 10-9 Jones | The round's only takedown, all four of Gustafsson's attempts stopped, and the head kick; Gustafsson's 28-25 edge in total strikes was not enough to take it. |
| Total | 48-47 Jones |
Our card matches Bertrand's exactly. Round 3 is the hardest call. On the official count it was Jones's, but the damage was Gustafsson's, and without the leg kicks he landed more. Round 2 we give to Jones for his volume, though Crosby's score for Gustafsson is defensible.
Either way the fight ends with Jones winning. Gustafsson needs both middle rounds to take it, and Jones did enough in at least one of them on any reasonable reading. Rounds 4 and 5 were Jones's on every card. A close, great fight is not the same as a robbery, and this was the former.
What happened next
Both men went to hospital that night and missed the press conference. They shared the $50,000 Fight of the Night bonus. Jones said he had finally been given the "dogfight" he had been asking for. Gustafsson said Jones was champion "for a reason" and, Sherdog reported, asked for an immediate rematch. Sherdog and Fox Sports both named it the 2013 Fight of the Year, and in March 2020 the UFC announced it as an inductee into the Fight Wing of its Hall of Fame.
The rematch took more than five years. Jones defended the title against Glover Teixeira in April 2014 and beat Daniel Cormier 49-46 on all three cards at UFC 182 in January 2015, and fought only twice more before the rematch, a win over Ovince Saint Preux in 2016 and a 2017 knockout of Cormier that was overturned to a no contest after a failed drug test. Gustafsson knocked out Jimi Manuwa, was stopped by Anthony Johnson, and lost a split decision to Cormier for the title at UFC 192 in October 2015.
They finally met again at UFC 232 on December 29, 2018, for the title Cormier had given up. This time Jones stopped Gustafsson with punches at 2:02 of the third round and took the belt back.
Gustafsson fought three more times and lost all three. Anthony Smith choked him out in the fourth round in June 2019, and he announced his retirement in the cage. He came back at heavyweight in July 2020 and was submitted by Fabricio Werdum in the first round. He returned to light heavyweight in July 2022 and was knocked out by Nikita Krylov at 1:07 of the first round, and he has not fought since. Jones moved to heavyweight, submitted Ciryl Gane for the title at UFC 285 in March 2023, and stopped Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 in November 2024. In June 2025 Dana White announced that Jones had retired.
The argument never quite went away. Gustafsson kept saying he had won the first fight; before UFC 232 he told reporters, as Bloody Elbow reported, "We all know that I didn't lose." Jones has said the fight was close but that Gustafsson did not beat him.
The verdict
Jones vs. Gustafsson 1 was the fight that showed Jones could be hit, cut and taken down, and it came down to two rounds the judges split. Gustafsson won the first round on every card and landed more to the head over the fight. Jones landed far more leg kicks, won the last two rounds on every card, and had the better of the middle rounds on two of three. On our card Jones won 48-47 - a deserved decision in one of the best title fights the UFC has had, not a robbery.
Full fight stats: Jones vs. Gustafsson. The rest of the night: UFC 165. More: the most title-fight wins, the most five-round fights and the fighters with the most disputed losses.
Sources
- UFCStats round-by-round statistics (scrape_ufc_stats mirror)
- Fox Sports - Full scorecard for UFC 165 main event
- Bloody Elbow - UFC 165 results: Jones vs. Gustafsson scorecards released
- MMADecisions - Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson
- ESPN - Jon Jones overcomes Alexander Gustafsson to defend title
- Sherdog - Jon Jones retains light heavyweight title, weathers serious challenge at UFC 165
- CBS Sports - UFC 165: Jones defeats Gustafsson via unanimous decision
- Bleacher Report - Jones vs. Gustafsson round-by-round recap
- Fox Sports - Jones vs. Gustafsson: the FightMetric scorecard
- Bloody Elbow - John McCarthy on the doctor and the cut at UFC 165
- UFC - UFC 165 press conference and bonus recap
- Sherdog - Gustafsson wants immediate rematch after close call with Jon Jones
- Sherdog - 2013 Fight of the Year
- ESPN - Jones vs. Gustafsson 1 picked for the UFC Hall of Fame
- ESPN - Jon Jones stops Alexander Gustafsson to win the light heavyweight title (UFC 232)
- Bloody Elbow - Gustafsson to Jones: 'We all know I didn't lose'
- ESPN - Gustafsson retires after submission loss to Smith
- ESPN - Jones vs. Cormier 2 changed to a no contest
- ESPN - Jon Jones retires from competition, Dana White says
Questions
Who won Jones vs. Gustafsson 1?
Jon Jones, by unanimous decision at UFC 165 on September 21, 2013. Richard Bertrand and Doug Crosby scored it 48-47 and Chris Lee 49-46, all for Jones. It was his sixth straight light heavyweight title defence.
What was the Jones vs. Gustafsson scorecard?
All three judges gave Alexander Gustafsson round 1 and Jon Jones rounds 4 and 5. Bertrand gave Jones round 2 and Gustafsson round 3, Crosby the opposite, and Lee gave Jones both, for totals of 48-47, 48-47 and 49-46.
Was Jones vs. Gustafsson a robbery?
Not by most scores. Fox Sports found 11 of 12 media outlets scoring it for Jones, and all three judges gave him the last two rounds. It was very close: Gustafsson landed more strikes to the head and won round 1 on every card. On our card Jones won 48-47.
Who landed more strikes in Jones vs. Gustafsson?
Jones landed more significant strikes, 134 to 110, but 53 of them were leg kicks. Gustafsson landed more to the head, 63 to 53, and more to the body, 33 to 28. Each man completed one takedown.
Did Gustafsson take Jon Jones down?
Yes, in the first round - according to ESPN and Bloody Elbow, the first time anyone had taken Jones down in the UFC. It was Gustafsson's only takedown of the fight. He also stopped ten of Jones's 11 takedown attempts.
Did Jones and Gustafsson have a rematch?
Yes. At UFC 232 on December 29, 2018, Jones stopped Gustafsson with punches at 2:02 of the third round to win the vacant light heavyweight title.
