Gegard Mousasi is sitting in a pretty precarious position right now. He has spent months training for his UFC debut, a main event bout against Alexander Gustafsson at UFC on Fuel 9 that could have title implications. Then all of a sudden, the bout is put into jeopardy due to a cut Gustafsson suffered in training. Mousasi was a guest on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani today and stated that he still believes the bout will go forward as scheduled this Saturday:
“So far as I know, the fight is still on.”
“I haven’t heard a lot but my manager is in contact with Joe Silva, I believe, and from what I have heard the fight is on and we’re going to go tomorrow to Sweden to the fights, and everything is the same as usual.”
He talked a bit about the frustration that has arisen due to the situation, which is completely understandable:
“For sure, some motivation goes. But what can I do? I don’t have any control. Sometimes I’m the last one to hear things. So I’m just waiting. That’s all I can do.
I put a lot of work into it. I did the media stuff, everything. I’ve done almost 90-percent of the job and the training, or whatever. The fight is the most easy part for me. It’s frustrating [if] it [doesn’t] go through. But they said to me — at least not to me, but I’ve heard from my manager — the fight is still on and there’s nothing I can think differently than what they say to me.”
Finally, he made it clear that if the bout does go down and his opponent is at a disadvantage, he has no problems trying to exploit that:
“If he’s cut, I’m going to make sure I hit him where he’s cut. I’m not going to be Mr. Friendly and be very sporty, sport-like, man-ship. I don’t care. I just want to win the fight.”
I like that. Instead of giving the PC answer, he told the truth. I’d target a potential weakness too, there’s too much on the line not to. He also says that he doesn’t care if there’s an opponent switch or not:
“I don’t care about the opponent. I train for it for eight weeks, even longer, so I just want to fight. I don’t care if it’s him or someone else.”
Hopefully the situation can get resolved soon so everyone knows for sure what’s going to happen on Saturday night in Stockholm.