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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
The heavily anticipated rematch between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson is going to have to wait, as the Swedish challenger has suffered an injury, taking him out of UFC 178 in September.
The UFC announced the unfortunate news on Wednesday night, revealing that Daniel Cormier will step up for the title fight in his place.
It's not known yet just how long Gustafsson will be out, but the injury is seemingly severe enough to take postponing the fight out of the question. Instead, Jones will get the fight he was calling for anyway against Cormier.
The former Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix winner defeated Dan Henderson in dominant fashion in May at UFC 173, and Jones said he felt Cormier deserved the title fight over Gustafsson. He went along with the Gustafsson rematch, but now gets Cormier anyway.
Jones made his latest Title defense in April, besting Glover Teixeira in a one-sided decision in Baltimore at UFC 172.
UFC 178 takes place from Las Vegas on Sept. 27, airing live on pay-per-view.
Penick's Analysis: This news is both disappointing and exciting at the same time. A second Jones-Gustafsson fight is likely to be fantastic as the first was, but Jones-Cormier is another really great fight as well. Now, Cormier was going to undergo knee surgery, so he may not be 100% by the time this fight comes, but he's not going to turn that opportunity down, either, and had already said he'd postpone any surgery in order to take the Jones fight.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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