Alexander Gustafsson may not have been granted an immediate rematch against Jon Jones, but his path back to the title is now clear.
According to UFC President Dana White, if Gustafsson defeats his next opponent, a grudge match against Jones will be the Swede’s follow-up assignment.
“Obviously he’s got to win, but yeah, he’s fighting (Jones) next. 100-percent, that’s the next fight,” White told MMAFighing.com on Monday.
On Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, Gustafsson said that an immediate rematch was a “done deal” in his mind, but now that he must wait, he hopes Jones defeats Glover Teixeira in March 2014.
In the meantime, UFC officials are targeting an event built around Gustafsson to take place in either Sweden or London, “right around the time” when Jones and Teixeira go to battle.
Jones initially supported the idea of an immediate rematch against Gustafsson, but after re-watching the fight multiple times, he changed his views on the subject.
“Jones said, ‘Listen, I fought that fight. I won that fight. I want to fight Glover Teixeira now. And then we’ll do the rematch with Gustafsson,'” White said.
“As awesome as that fight was, now people will flip it to, ‘Oh, now he’s ducking Gustafsson. That’s who he should be fighting.’ He’s not ducking Gustafsson. He’s going to fight Gustafsson. But before that, he’s going to fight another killer in Glover Teixeira. The guy’s on a 20-something-fight win streak and he’s knocking everybody out. It’s another seriously dangerous fight for Jones. Then after he fights this dangerous guy, he’s going to go back and fight Gustafsson again.”