UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Daniel Cormier is set to defend his title against the challenge of Alexander Gustafsson at the UFC 192 event in early October.
For Cormier, this next fight is critical and it will go a long way towards establishing him as a legitimate champion. The UFC Light Heavyweight belt was the exclusive property of Jon Jones for several years, and Cormier lost to Jones decisively with the title on the line back in December. Since then, Jones’ personal problems have caught up to him and he was stripped of the belt by the UFC. Cormier faced Anthony Johnson for the vacated belt and won convincingly, but the presence fo Jones on the sidelines does not mean people still dont think of Jones as the true champion.
Bader had won four fights in a row, and he was supposed to main event this weekend’s UFC in New Orleans facing Cormier, but that fight was cancelled when Cormier got the call for the title fight. Bader tried to push his way into the fight with a press conference confrontation with Cormier that caused some waves, and frankly, his recent resume is a lot better than that of Gustafsson.
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Gustafsson’s best moment came against Jones, when he gave the then champion all he could handle in a narrow five round loss. The rematch between Jones and Gustafsson was something that was highly anticipated, and Jones seemed to be motivated by it as well. However, injuries and Jones’ self-implosion prevented that fight from ever happening. Gustafsson’s brutal loss to Anthony Johnson not only propelled Johnson into the title fight against Cormier, it had the effect of knocking Gustafsson down a notch to the point where no one expected him to be Cormier’s first challenge.
But Gustafsson is running a risk as well. Though his losses are to top level guys, he is 1-2 in his last three fights and adding another loss here will simply mean the Swede has lost three of four. And for Cormier? Smashing the guy that gave Jon Jones his toughest challenge would get him a little bit of the legitimacy he craves.
