UFC light-heavyweight contender Alexander Gustafsson today lent his support to Benjamin Adegbuyi’s campaign for a shot at the GLORY heavyweight title.
Rico Verhoeven won the belt in the main event of June’s LAST MAN STANDING card, taking a win over Daniel Ghita to capture the vacant title.
In recent interviews Verhoeven assessed his potential challengers from the upper end of the heavyweight pack, Adegbuyi among them.
Verhoeven praised the Romanian newcomer, 2-0 in GLORY with both wins by stoppage, saying he expected to see him emerge as a force but that he felt Adegbuyi needed more experience.
Gustafsson flew Adegbuyi and his team mate Andrei Stoica to Sweden earlier this year to form part of his training camp for the fight with Jimi Manuwa.
He wanted hard stand-up sparring to prepare for Manuwa’s style and he got it; Gustafsson said at the time that sparring the pair was “like fighting bears”.
Gustaffson went on to stop Manuwa and end the London man’s undefeated run and restate his claim to UFC gold. Now he’s backing Adegbuyi’s own claim to a GLORY belt.
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<div class=”fb-post” data-href=”https://www.facebook.com/AlexTheMauler/photos/a.310758149003998.73741.292890170790796/709185255827950/?type=1″ data-width=”466″><div class=”fb-xfbml-parse-ignore”><a href=”https://www.facebook.com/AlexTheMauler/photos/a.310758149003998.73741.292890170790796/709185255827950/?type=1″>Post</a> by <a href=”https://www.facebook.com/AlexTheMauler”>Alexander Gustafsson</a>.</div></div>
For his part Adegbuyi says he Gustafsson could easily be a contender in GLORY should he ever decide to switch codes and fight strictly standup.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” lang=”en”><p>Motivating words coming from a friend, sparring partner and the real champ!! <a href=”https://twitter.com/johnjoeoregan”>@johnjoeoregan</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/AlexTheMauler”>@AlexTheMauler</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/GLORY_WS”>@GLORY_WS</a> <a href=”https://t.co/lmqDrChmjs”>https://t.co/lmqDrChmjs</a></p>— benjamin adegbuyi (@AdegBenny) <a href=”https://twitter.com/AdegBenny/statuses/504329367313711105″>August 26, 2014</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-conversation=”none” lang=”en”><p><a href=”https://twitter.com/johnjoeoregan”>@johnjoeoregan</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/AlexTheMauler”>@AlexTheMauler</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/GLORY_WS”>@GLORY_WS</a> I think is one of the top fighters , he has amazing skills.. He can do stand up under glory rules!</p>— benjamin adegbuyi (@AdegBenny) <a href=”https://twitter.com/AdegBenny/statuses/504337724745478144″>August 26, 2014</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-conversation=”none” lang=”en”><p><a href=”https://twitter.com/johnjoeoregan”>@johnjoeoregan</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/AlexTheMauler”>@AlexTheMauler</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/GLORY_WS”>@GLORY_WS</a> i was surprised of his stand up game, when we sparred!!</p>— benjamin adegbuyi (@AdegBenny) <a href=”https://twitter.com/AdegBenny/statuses/504338560930308096″>August 26, 2014</a></blockquote>
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GLORY’s next event is pegged for late October, according to new CEO Jon Franklin, with the location being somewhere in the US. It will air live on SPIKE TV, the broadcast deal recently having been renewed for 2015.
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