Let me first recap this bout for what it was before shining it like a mirror of digression on the deep past.

This championship meeting in Toronto was regarded at fight time as one of the most hotly contested MMA bouts in the 205 pound weight class in the past 20 years. Jones came in at 18-1 and Gustafson at 15-1. Jones is a kicker with a wrestling background. Gustafson is essentially a shored-up boxer, augmenting his European boxing style with kicks and counter-clinching. I hope some Russian boxers were paying attention.

The first thing you notice about Jones is that his arms are so long he can elbow from punching range. The scores below are mine.

Gustafson showed a compact yet loose sneaky boxing style, using up-jabs and sneaky rights and slipping punches, cutting Jones early.

Jones worked the legs and body with his kicks and landed a sick elbow at the end.

Score: This round should have been a draw but I scored it 10-9 Gustafson

Gustafson stuffed Jones’ takedown attempts and scored one of his own, landing a nice uppercut in the mix.

Jones worked the Swede over with kicks.

Score: 10-9 Jones

Gustafson started mixing up his punching attack with straight punches to the heart and feinted hooks, all of which are difficult to see from ringside.

Jones put in some good kicks but was dominated.

Score: 10-9 Gustafson

This was a great round, with both fighters on the hunt. I could not with a clear conscience score against either fighter in this round, so gave it to Jones since I gave the last drawn round to Gustafson.

Score; 10-9 Jones

Gustafson put in some fantastic work this round and then began to gas. He ate three hard head kicks without blinking. It was not enough. Jones clearly won this round.

Score: 10-9 Jones

Bout Score: 48-47 Jones, which had me in line with the ringside judges.

In boxing there is a problem with judges scoring clearly seen punches over more damaging economy-of motion punches. The thought that muscles power punches among non-fighters who serve as judges corrupts the scoring. In MMA kicks are scored more often, and as more effective, than punches because they are more visible, and also because the judges do not understand that a body punch and a body kick both deliver the same force if properly executed, just with a different striking surface.

This is not likely to ever change and is why the ancients did not score bouts, but fought them to the finish.

If you want to know what the champion boxers and MMA fighters of the ancient world looked like, just look at Jones and Gustafson. There were no weight classes. The top strikers of the day were built just like these guys and probably just as tall, having been described as ‘god-like’ in height. Yes, men were smaller back then, but there was no NFL or NBA.

The bout would have been conducted in an open sand pit, both men’s bodies oiled. If one of the men stepped out of bounds he was judged to have quit. This permitted Sumo tactics, which the oil was worn to counter. The men could stay close and be very hard to shove, grapple and submit, oiled and naked as they were. The rules were essentially the same except finger-breaking, eye-pokes and groin-strikes were permitted. Both fighters’ hand techniques were functional bare-knuckle blows, though they would have slapped with the head hooks. An open handed hook is nothing to laugh at. I lost 25% of the hearing in my left ear and almost went to sleep from one delivered by a man of this size.

In that ancient context Jones would have probably won early on due to eye-jabs with his fingers. Keep in mind Jones would have had to fight up to six other opponents to win the crown, as ancient contests were all single-elimination tournaments chosen by lot not seed. A low-energy finger jab with that long reach would have been preferred. The counter to this tactic would be for Gustafson to punch at Jones’ open hand and break the fingers.

Near the end of the fight it was noted by a commentator that Jones may well be seen fighting as a heavyweight one day. After the fight coming attractions of the upcoming Dos Santos and Valesquez bout were shown. Yes, the answer to your question is that there were dudes at about six feet tall or just over built like modern MMA heavyweights back in ancient times. They came from wrestling. The most notable wrestler versus boxer bout of the ancient MMA arena was Klietomakhus versus Kratos. If you can imagine Valesquez versus Gustafson you would not be far off.

I will cover that tournament in an upcoming chapter of Agony and Immortality. Look for that free posting on the ancient combat page sometime this winter.