Following UFC Fight Night 30 where Lyoto Machida bested Mark Munoz in his Middleweight debut, UFC president Dana White announced that Light Heavyweight Alexander Gustafsson would face Antonio Rogerio Nogueira on March 8 when the promotion returns to Engand. When asked about the fight, Gustafsson said he was looking forward to the bout:
Well, I’m super excited to be fighting in London. I’ve fought there before and I’m very excited to fight there again with Lil Nog. We were supposed to fight way back and we didn’t. And now I’ve got the chance to fight him again and I’m really looking forward to it. He’s a great standup striker and a really good opponent.
Gustafsson is coming off giving champion Jon Jones the hardest fight of his career thus far at UFC 165. Unlike Jones’ previous challengers, Gus wasn’t overwhelmed or beaten beneath the champ’s top game. His size allowed him to punish Jones on the feet and had some saying he should have won the decision. An immediate rematch was discussed after the fight, but the UFC decided to have Jones face a fresh contender in Glover Teixeira instead. White did say that the rematch is likely if both fighters win their next bouts.
After going 2-2 in his first four UFC fights, Rogerio has put together two impressive wins. He TKO’d Tito Ortiz in a dominant first round TKO at UFC 140. Then, he pulled off a huge upset over another former champ in Rashad Evans with a unanimous decision at UFC 156. He’ll rightly be a significant underdog in March, but he’s shown his ability to rise to the occasion before.
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