Alexander Gustafsson sidelined indefinitely

Recently, news surfaced that top ranked UFC light heavyweight Alexander Gustafsson had been forced to pull out of his UFC Fight Night: 100 scrap with Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, where ‘The Mauler’ would look to build momentum on his ‘UFC Fight Night: Hamburg’ win over Jan Blanhowicz last month. Unfortunately for Gustafsson, he was forced out of the fight almost immediately after the fight had been announced.

At the time of his withdrawal, no word was given as to the nature of the injury which was forcing the Swede to pull out of the fight, however now his co-manager Tomas Ghassemi, it was a back injury, which will see Gustafsson sidelined indefinitely.

Ghassemi spoke to ESPN:

“Pain will come up and then disappear whenever it wants,” Ghassemi told ESPN.com on Wednesday. “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.”

Fortunately, while Ghassemi admits that Gustafsson and his team are unsure what steps to take to ensure his speedy return to the Octagon, they are confident that the issue will be resolved, and Gustafsson will once again make his return to the Octagon.

Unfortunately, due to the fact that there Gustafsson’s team is unsure how to proceed, Ghassemi revealed that there is currently no timetable for The Mauler’s return to the Octagon.

Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time Gustafsson has dealt with this back injury. According to Ghassemi, Gustafsson also dealt with the same problem while training for his ‘UFC Fight Night: Stockholm’ headlining fight with Anthony Johnson back in 2015, fortunately however, Gustafsson’s back pain subsided throughout the course of camp, which enabled him to fight Johnson rather than pull out. Ultimately, Gustafsson lost the fight via 1st round KO.

We here at BJPenn.com would like to wish Alexander Gustafsson a speedy recovery!