UFC Event

UFC 165: Jones vs. Gustafsson fight card

A look at next week's UFC 165 PPV from Toronto, Canada, where Jon Jones and Renan Barao put their respective belts on the line against Alexander Gustafsson and Eddie Wineland.

By Mookie Alexander@mookiealexander Sep 15, 2013, 7:00pm EDT

Some say that UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is tall and long. Others call him long and tall. He's tall in height, he has really long arms, and that leads to the longest reach measurement in the UFC. If he were to fight Clay Guida right now the reach advantage would be almost the same length as the typical requirement for a first down in football.

He's so dominant, tall, lanky, and did I mention tall? So the UFC has found a counterpart to challenge him in the "tall" department. Meet Alexander Gustafsson, a 26-year-old Swede who is TALLER than Jon Jones. According to him, his arms grew even longer and the reach differential is only separated by 2 inches. I for one cannot wait to see two tall fighters with long arms engage in what they call "the mixed martial arts".

Okay, I'm done mocking the UFC's ridiculous angle they've given their dominant champion and highly credible and exciting title challenger. We've also got a co-main event between interim BW champion Renan Barao and Eddie Wineland, and we should expect nothing less than a great scrap. Francis Carmont and Constantinos Philippou square off in a key middleweight bout, ditto for Pat Healy and Khabib Nurmagomedov at lightweight, and Brendan Schaub meets Matt Mitrione in what should be one of the great ADCC level grappling affairs the sport has ever seen.

The only major change in the preliminary card is Wilson Reis filling in for the injured Kid Yamamoto against Ivan Menjivar.

UFC 165 is Saturday, September 21st with the preliminary card airing live on both Facebook and then Fox Sports 1. Here's the full card, so plan accordingly:

Main Card (PPV)

Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson
Renan Barao vs. Eddie Wineland
Brendan Schaub vs. Matt Mitrione
Francis Carmont vs. Constantinos Philippou
Pat Healy vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov

Preliminary Card (Fox Sports 1)

Mike Ricci vs. Myles Jury
Ivan Menjivar vs. Wilson Reis
Chris Clements vs. Stephen Thompson
Mitch Gagnon vs. Dustin Kimura

Preliminary Card (Facebook)

John Makdessi vs. Renee Forte
Jesse Ronson vs. Michel Prazeres
Roland Delorme vs. Alex Caceres
Nandor Guelmino vs. Daniel Omielanczuk

SBN coverage of UFC 165: Jones vs. Gustafsson