The news of an Alexander Gustaffson cut during training has led to reports that the Swede is OUT of his UFC on Fuel TV 9 main event bout with Gegard Mousasi, who is making his UFC debut. Yes, this led to some deep introspection and we chucked a few prayers God’s way hoping that this wasn’t true, and now we are hearing reports that Gustaffson may be ready to fight.
This is what Ariel Helwani tweeted:
Ariel Helwani @arielhelwani
Hold up! @danawhite just told me @AlexTheMauler vs. @mousasi_mma is STILL ON. “The SAC has not said he can’t fight + he wants to fight.”
Gegard had this to say about Gustaffson:
“So far as I know, the fight is still on … I trained for a fight, you know, I don’t care if they change opponents as long as I fight, that was what I was thinking. I don’t care (who is) the opponent. I trained for it for eight weeks, even longer, so I just wanted to fight. I don’t care if it’s him or someone else … For sure, a little motivation goes, but what can I do, you know, I don’t have any control … I haven’t heard a lot, but my manager’s in contact with Joe Silva, I believe, and from what I’ve heard, the fight is on and we’re going to go tomorrow to Sweden to the fights and everything is the same as usual. (The UFC) said nothing about a different opponent, they said the fight is the same, so I don’t know. I don’t know what kind of injury he has, I know it’s a cut but other than that, I don’t know a lot … If he’s cut, I’m going to make sure I’m going to hit him where he’s cut. I’m not going to be Mr Friendly and be very sporty, I don’t care, I just want to win the fight.”
Well, knowing Mousasi is aiming for your cut isn’t very motivating for Gustaffson, but regardless we’ve been looking forward to this fight for months, and we’ve wanted Gegard in the UFC for years… Why can’t this just happen? Hopefully everything works out. With Gustaffson off a Shogun win and Mousasi helping the light heavyweight division’s depth, this fight is damn close to determining the three spot in the rankings in our opinion.
