Daniel Cormier Surprised That Alexander Gustafsson Was Named Number Contender

UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier thought with all of the trash talk from Ryan Bader and a feud already in the works that the UFC would have booked the two in a title bout later this year, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, the UFC booked DC against Alexander Gustafsson at a date yet to be announced.

Even though, Gustafson is coming off a loss Anthony Johnson at UFC on FOX 14 in January, the promotion gave him a title shot. This surprised the newly crowned champ when the news broke.

“I was surprised, but you just don’t know how things work out at times,” he told MMAMania.com. “I just fight who they put in front of me. They said it’s Gustafsson, I said ‘okay.’ If they would’ve said it was someone else, I would’ve said ‘okay.'”

DC went on to say that he would have rather fought Bader due to the comments made by him leading up to UFC 187, which is where DC won the championship at in May.

Following that fight at the post-fight presser, Bader stormed up to the stage and talked trash to the champ. Actions that were not okay with Cormier.

“Bader had been yapping his gums a little bit, but you know what man, he was trying to get a fight and it didn’t work out. His time will come.”

“Ryan was going on emotion and I thought for the first time in his career, he’s actually taking the initiative to try and make something happen for himself,” Cormier said. “As you see with McGregor and the rest of the people that are doing it nowadays, that shit matters. You want something, you go out and get it and you try. So, hats off to him for doing it.”

Cormier planned to fight in the coming weeks following that event, but his fight with Gustafsson was put on hold due to injury. Now, Cormier is looking to make his first championship defense by the end of this year. Cormier stated that he has some knee issues that need to be taken care of.

He added that he told Gustafson this and they had a nice chat about the matter. Cormier is still targeting October as a return date.

“I have some stuff I have to take care of with my knee, but once I’m done with that I’m ready to go,” Cormier said. “I talked to Gustafsson the other day. I told Alex, I said, ‘hey, I’m going to get some stuff done to my knee. Obviously I’ve had some knee issues. That will take about a month. Once I’m done with that month we can get scheduled.’ I said, ‘I just want you to know I’m not trying to avoid our fight by pushing it back. I just need to get this done and we can fight in October.’ He said, ‘yeah, cool, I’m just happy to get another shot.’ He’s a great guy.”