Alexander Gustafsson finds himself in a bad spot following yesterday’s announcement that Jon Jones suffered a knee injury and the UFC would postpone Jones’ fight with Daniel Cormier until January.
Gustafsson was originally set to get his long awaited rematch with Jones when he suffered his own injury, forcing him out of the bout and opening the door for Cormier to step in as a replacement.
With Jones/Cormier delayed, some wondered if Gustafsson would step back into the title shot that was his to begin with, but the UFC assured Cormier that the shot was his. This after a week of craziness where Jones and Cormier got into a brawl at a press conference and then a video was seemingly leaked of the two engaging in wild trash talk before an interview on ESPN.
While those situations were sold by some as “bad for the sport,” they clearly contributed to a lot of excitement for the bout and the UFC keeping Cormier in the title fight means that they’re well aware of serious potential post-brawl money.
Gustafsson is unhappy, though. Late last night he posted the following to Instagram, with the message “Apparently @ufc thinks that acting like clowns on a pressconference will hype a fight more than doing the fight of the century, thats ridiculous.”
He’d also posted on Facebook yesterday, “I just heard the news that Jones is injured and the fight is rescheduled to January 3???? Until then, I will be more than ready, it was MY fight to begin with and I WANT the fight as the number 1 contender. End of story!!”
Barring a Cormier injury, it looks like more waiting for Gustafsson, who has already had to wait for what many fans thought should have been an immediate rematch.