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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Alexander Gustafsson is officially out of Saturday's UFC on Fuel 9 event, as the Swedish MMA Federation announced on Tuesday that they would not clear him to participate in the card.
The SMMAF's medical committee made the determination after examining the cut Gustafsson suffered in training this past week. Here's part of the statement released by the SMMAF (via Ariel Helwani on Twitter):
"The SMMAF Medical Committee has today reviewed the circumstances regarding Gustafsson and his injury. The SMMAF Medical Committee recognizes that a competitor cannot be medically cleared earlier than the day before the match. However, bearing in mind that a correct medical examination that met the regulatory demands has been performed, nothing in the SMMAF regulations hinders the SMMAF Medical Committee from making a decision to stop Gustafsson from competing. As it is clear that Alexander Gustafsson will not be fit to compete as planned and cannot be medically cleared on Friday the 5th of April, the SMMAF Medical Committee has today decided that Alexander Gustafsson will not be allowed to participate in the planned match on April 6th."
The UFC has not yet made any official statements regarding Saturday's main event, but Gegard Mousasi is on his way to Sweden and prepared to fight any opponent.
Penick's Analysis: And here's where we'll find out that Wanderlei Silva is actually stepping in, and him saying it was an April Fool's joke was actually the lie. It's still a mess, but as expected, Gustafsson is officially out of the bout against Gegard Mousasi, leaving the UFC to announce something hopefully soon regarding Saturday's event.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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