Swedish Gustafsson defends home turf, KO’s Brazilian Teixeira
SWEDISH light heavyweight fighter Alexander “The Mauler” Gustafsson “defended the land” yesterday, knocking out Brazilian Glover Teixeira in the fifth and final round of their headlining clash at “UFC Fight Night 109” in Stockholm, Sweden.
Fighting on home soil for the third time, the hometown bet did not disappoint his countrymen as he displayed an impressive performance that highlighted further his comeback trail in the Ultimate Fighting Championship and thrust him forward to another crack at the division title currently held by Daniel “DC” Cormier, who dealt the Swede his last defeat in 2015.
Mr. Gustafsson started aggressively and was very much in control throughout the fight, making full use of his height and reach advantage.
He connected on vicious strikes that rattled his opponent early. An unintentional poke by Mr. Gustafsson would compound Mr. Teixeira’s woes as he struggled with his vision the rest of the opening round.
In the second and third rounds the top light heavyweight contender continued to dominate, sending Mr. Teixeira down to the canvas a couple of times with a spinning elbow and punches.
The last two rounds were a showcase of Mr. Gustafsson’s superiority that culminated with the Swede landing an uppercut then following it up with a solid right hand that dropped Mr. Teixeira, signaling the end for the latter before the referee stopped the fight at the 1:07-minute mark of the fifth round.
With the win, Mr. Gustafsson improved to 18-4, winning backto- back fights after losing two consecutive times previously.
More importantly, he threw his name back in the mix for a title shot after two unsuccessful tries prior, against Mr. Cormier in 2015 and Jon “Bones” Jones in 2013.
In victory, Mr. Gustafsson shared that he had it solid in the fight but gave credit to his opponent as well.
“He ( Teixeira) hits hard. He had some good combinations, but my uppercut worked, as well as my elbows and knees. He’s a great fighter but it was my day today,” said Mr. Gustafsson, who also took time in the postfight interview to propose to his girlfriend.
The defeat, on the other hand, pushed number two contender Teixeira down to 26-6 and halted the winning momentum he had built in his previous fight.
In other fights in the main card, meanwhile, light heavyweight Volkan Oezdemir defeated Misha Cirkunov by knockout ( punch) in the first round, welterweight Peter Sobotta beat Ben Saunders by technical knockout ( knee) in the second round, welterweight Omari Akhmedov edged Abdul Razak Alhassan by split decision ( 30- 27, 28- 29 and 30- 27), welterweight Nordine Taleb got the better of Oliver Enkamp by unanimous decision (30-27, 3027 and 29-28), and middleweight Jack Hermansson TKO’d Alex Nicholson (punches) in the opening round.
Next for the UFC is “UFC 102” on June 4 (Manila time) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that will feature the featherweight clash between champion Jose Aldo and interim champ Max Holloway in the main event.
Co- main event will be the women’s strawweight battle of Claudia Gadelha (#1) and Karolina Kowalkiewicz (#2).
In the Philippines, Cignal TV, the country’s foremost directto-home (DTH) company, is the home of the UFC after the two groups agreed to an extensive deal that will see the UFC beamed on various platforms.