Alexander Gustafsson Willing To Go To Heavyweight For Daniel Cormier Fight
Alexander Gustafsson is willing to go all out for a fight with Daniel Cormier.
There is a lot of history between Gustafsson and “DC” as they have fought in the past as well as exchanged words through the power of social media because Gustafsson feels that he should be fighting for the title instead of waiting for DC to get done with his next fight.
The two fighters already faced each other at UFC 192 in 2015, which led to Gustafsson winning back-to-back fights since losing a close split decision to Cormier at UFC 192 and in those fights, he scored a unanimous decision victory over Jan Blachowicz and knocking out Glover Teixeira.
Gustafsson voiced his frustration with the fact that Cormier may not defend the light heavyweight belt anytime soon after beating Stipe Miocic for the UFC heavyweight title at the UFC 226 pay-per-view event earlier this month and is now waiting for a fight with former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar in January of 2019.
“It’s frustrating because he has something I want,” Gustafsson stated in a recent interview (transcript courtesy of MMA Fighting). “He doesn’t come back down and face me and he’s keeping the belt. But at the same time, the hunt isn’t over. … I might continue chasing [DC]. If I need to move up to heavyweight to face him, I will.”
“It’s funny, it’s clear he doesn’t want to face me,” Gustafsson said. “First of all, he is never coming back down to light heavyweight. He is struggling to stay at heavyweight. DC is a big boy, as tall as he is wide. I don’t think he will go down again. He loves food and loves to eat. To sacrifice so much with dieting and food and then going down to face me? I think I will have to move to heavyweight to get a piece of DC again.”
“DC is smart and he’s a big inspiration for me,” concluded Gustafsson. “Thirty-nine years old and two belts. I can’t really trash the guy and I can’t really have beef with him. I think he’s great in every way, it just sucks that he has my belt. Let’s see how we solve it.”
Gustafsson was supposed to fight Volkan Oezdemir at the upcoming UFC 227 pay-per-view event but that fight got nixed after the former title contender pulled out of the bout due to injury and now, Gustafsson is waiting to see if the promotion can find him a suitable replacement, which time will tell if that happens.
