‘I’m A More Dangerous Opponent for Cormier than Gustafsson’

Ryan Bader has been campaigning for a shot at the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship which was recently claimed by Daniel Cormier. After Cormier defeated Anthony Johnson at UFC 187 in May, Bader confronted Cormier at the post fight press conference and took matters into his own hands.

For the following weeks, Bader and Cormier proceeded to trash talk each other and all signs were pointing to a potential championship bout. However, Alexander Gustafsson jumped the line caught everybody off guard when he was announced as the new top contender and was assigned as the first challenger to Cormier’s belt.

Ryan Bader was taken back by the UFC’s decision and called the whole situation a “learning experience”. The squeaky wheel doesn’t ALWAYS get the grease. Whether or not he made enough noise aside, Bader believes that he is more of a threat to Comrier’s title than Gus.

“I thought I matched up really well with Cormier and [could] give him problems that other people haven’t,” Bader said on the MMA Hour. “I think he can go in there and beat Gus and use his wrestling. I definitely felt that I was the more dangerous fight, for sure.”

Ryan Bader is currently holding an active four fight win streak while Gustafsson is coming off a loss to the challenger Cormier beat in “Rumble”. The situation makes no sense from an MMA math standpoint, but Bader came clean about his thoughts of Gus getting the shot.

“Gus is a great fighter,” Bader said. “He’s awesome. But he just doesn’t deserve that shot right now coming off of a loss like that.”

Ryan Bader and Daniel Cormier were orignally supposed to meet this past weekend at UFC Fight Night 68, but Cormier was pulled from the card when Jon Jones was stripped of his UFC Light Heavyweight Championship. D.C. and Anthony Johnson met at UFC 187 to decide the fate of the newly vacated title.

“I was good enough to fight him then. Why not now? That’s kind of how I’m looking at it. You never know, but my team and I definitely thought we had that. It’s disappointing, but I’m not gonna sit here and cry about it. I’m just gonna go out and do more.”

BJPENN.COM ALL-ACCESS! UFC 188 – Gilbert Melendez Media Day! — WATCH!