Alexander Gustafsson is coming off of a dominant win over Jan Blachowicz at UFC Fight Night 93 and was set to headlined UFC Fight Night 100 against Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, but a pesky injury has not only caused Gustafsson to be pulled from UFC Fight Night 100, but maybe from everything MMA for the time being.
According to Gustafsson’s longtime co-manager Tomas Ghasseni while speaking with ESPN, a back problem that the fighter has suffered from for three to four years has caused the light heavyweight to stay out of the cage for the near future.
"Pain will come up and then disappear whenever it wants," Ghassemi said. "It's maybe an issue with a disk. When the pain starts to go into his legs, that's when he knows it will affect his training and that's what happened with this one. We wanted a quick turnaround after this last fight. He's in great shape, but when it flared up and went into his legs, we couldn't take the fight. If you try to fight through it and lose, you can't blame it after the fact. It's better to deal with it now."
Ghasseni also stated that when Gustafsson fought Anthony Johnson a few years back in Sweden, he was dealing with the very same back problem, but Gustafsson “…was lucky enough to have it mostly dissipate prior to the event.”
Ran Bader has replaced Gustafsson for the main event of UFC Fight Night 100 against Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Gustafsson next fight is not expected to be announced anytime soon.
