Anthony Smith is a bit skeptical of Alexander Gustafsson’s injury.
Earlier today (July 22), Smith went one-on-one with Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. It was the second time in a row where Smith took on a former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) title holder. Once again, Smith earned a first-round knockout. After the fight Smith called for a bout against “The Mauler” at UFC 227 on Aug. 4.
John Morgan took to Twitter to dash those hopes as UFC officials told him that Gustafsson is injured and off the UFC 227 card. Gustafsson was scheduled to fight Volkan Oezdemir, but “No Time” was forced to pull out due to a broken nose. The UFC had been looking for a replacement opponent.
During the UFC Hamburg post-fight press conference, Smith reacted to the report:
“That’s ironic, isn’t it? Kinda weird how that works out. He needed an opponent yesterday, what happened between then and now? I don’t know, I really don’t know. But that’s mighty ironic and I think that I’m a hard guy to train for, I really do. Honestly, I told you guys I show up with a different product every time I fight. The Rashad fight, I was a little bit rushed and forcing stuff and this time I was a lot more patient and kind of let things develop.”
With the victory over Rua, Smith has improved his professional mixed martial arts record to 30-13. He has gone 5-1 in his last six outings. Smith used to cut to middleweight, but following a TKO loss to Thiago Santos, Smith felt the weight cutting was getting to be unbearable. He is 2-0 as a light heavyweight with a “Performance of the Night” bonus to boot. It’ll be interesting to see what’s next for Smith if Gustafsson is indeed off the table.
Do you think we’ll see Anthony Smith vs. Alexander Gustafsson sometime down the line?
