Glover Teixeira tog sig under söndagen an ingen mindre än Alexander Gustafsson, då de möttes under ”UFC: Sweden” i Stockholm. Teixeira förlorade slutligen mötet via knockout i femte ronden, men i första ronden skedde en incident då Glover fick ett finger i ögat.
Enligt Teixeira kunde matchen möjligtvis blivit aningen jämnare om det inte hade hänt, och även om det störde honom vill han inte ursäkta matchresultatet på ögonpetningen. Detta hade han att säga via ”MMAFighting”:
If I tell you that that didn’t disturb me, that’s a lie. Everybody knows, a fighter or not, that getting poked in the eye like that, it was strong, so that disturbed me. But if I had gotten knocked out right after that, I’d definitely blame it. I went back in there without seeing anything. I was seeing three Gustafssons. It was all blurry, but I thought I’d have five minutes (to recover).
I didn’t know if they would cancel the fight, if it would be a no contest, but I didn’t want that. Of course not. I’m a fighter and I believe I had chances to defeat him, otherwise I wouldn’t even be fighting. But I think that, without that eye poke, maybe I’d be able to impose my game, at least in the first round.
Regardless, I think that, the way he was fighting, the speed… he was better, I couldn’t find him. After my eye got better, I couldn’t find him. The result would really have been the same. Maybe not the knockout, a closer fight, but the result would have been the same.
Congratulations to Gustafsson. He fought me in the best shape of my life, no injuries whatsoever. I have no excuses.
