Cormier’s Confident He Can Strike With Gustafsson

UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier will face off with Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 192. It will be Cormier’s first title defense since winning the vacant belt in a submission victory over Anthony Johnson.

Gustafsson will be coming in having lost his most recent fight, a knockout loss to ‘Rumble’ Johnson. The popular theory would be that Cormier will plan on using his wrestling to get the fight to the ground. However, the champ told Fighthype that there are several ways he thinks he can win the fight.

Here’s what he said:

“There are reasons to be confident against Alexander and there are reasons to be worried about Alexander. He presents a lot of problems for any fighter, but in this match-up, I see a lot of paths to victory. …I believe that I have more opportunities and more chances to win this fight than he does. It’s not as simple as I just have to wrestle and take him down to win. I can win the standup fight. I could grind him up against the cage and beat him. I can take him down and beat him. There are a lot of ways for me to beat him, and for Alex, I think his ways are pretty limited.”

“You know what, man? I’ve seen the fight and I’ve seen the range and Jones does a good job of fighting long, just like Gustafsson does, and I closed the distance pretty good in that fight. I felt it. So it gives me a little bit of confidence.”

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