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Reports coming out of Sweden indicate No. 2 ranked light heavyweight Alexander Gustafsson suffered a cut over his eye in training and his scheduled main event bout versus Gegard Mousasi at Saturday’s UFC on FUEL TV 9 card in Stockholm is all but scrapped.
From MMANytt via Bloody Elbow:
“MMANytt recently confirmed this with the Swedish MMA Association who explain that it will take a number of weeks before the injury heals up, and that Gustafsson with 99% certainty won’t be medically approved in the medical examination which is planned to go down on Friday”
SMMAF spokeperson Gorge Sallfeldt to MMANytt: “This SMMAF doctor has seen the injury in person, while another two doctors say the same thing after having examined pictures of the injury. Our doctors have looked at this injury, and it’s very hard to imagine it will be medically approved by Friday.”
The bad news is if Gustafsson is out, there’s not much of a number two bout that could move up into that main event spot. Hopefully they can find a worthwhile short notice replacement.
The other bad news is, that was a damn good match-up between Gustafsson vs. Mousasi and the fans are out of what could have been one hell of a fight.
It should be noted there has been no confirmation yet from UFC officials on the matter. ProMMAnow.com has reached out to FUEL TV executives but have not heard back at the time of publication. Stay close to ProMMAnow.com for updates on this developing story.
UPDATE (11:12 p.m. CT): Ariel Helwani has received word from UFC President Dana What that as of now the bout is still on: “The [Swedish Mixed Martial Arts Federation] has not said he can’t fight, and he wants to fight.”
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