Alexander Gustafsson suffered a one-sided TKO loss to Jon Jones past December, but is sure hasn’t wasted time dwelling on UFC 232.
“The Mauler” is going to jump right back into the fray. Now he will do exactly that on June 1 when he meets fellow recent Jones victim – Anthony Smith, in the main event of UFC Stockholm.
“It was a really bad performance that I did, and I just, I wasn’t myself really”, Gustafsson said recently for “The MMA Hour” while reflecting on UFC 232.
“I just went in there and I tried to stick to the gameplan and everything, but no, he just found a way very early to neutralize my game and he put me away strong.”
“I just hate to lose, but it’s a sport and Jon is the best guy out there. I don’t know. I think I could’ve done much better, but it is what it is, and I just take it as a man. It’s a sport, and even if I had my third title shot and I lost the third one, I’m still not feeling bad about it or anything like that. Life moves on, I have a family at home, so I’m just [going to] keep doing what I’m doing and take the next fight and the next fight after that, and start from scratch a little bit.”
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— Alexander Gustafsson (@AlexTheMauler) January 16, 2019
“I just didn’t perform like I used to,” Gustafsson said. “I didn’t have the footwork going. And I have no excuses, it’s not that. It’s just like, after when he got me with that knee, I couldn’t really find the rhythm again. I just, I couldn’t move like I did before.”
“I just had a lot of pain after that, and I’ve never had that type of pain in my career before in a fight. Of course, you have pain, you get shots from everywhere and you get back, you just keep pushing. But he just stopped me right there, and I tried to move, work it with my footwork, try to kick him or attack, be explosive. But none of that worked. I just couldn’t with my groin.”
