Alexander Gustafsson
Stockholm card likely for Fuel TV
Confirming previously published reports, the UFC on Wednesday announced it will go to Sweden for the first time.
The promotion’s first event in the Scandinavian country in northern Europe will take place April 14 in Stockholm, the country’s capital and largest city. The card will take place at the 12,000-seat Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm.
UFC officials said Wednesday that main event and other fight announcements will be coming soon. As reported last month by HeavyMMA.com, one fight expected for the card right now is a welterweight bout between DaMarques Johnson and John Maguire.
The UFC currently has two fighters under contract from Sweden – Alexander Gustafsson and Papy Abedi, who was born in France but now lives in Sweden. Gustafsson is 5-1 in the UFC and is coming off a knockout win over Vladimir Matyushenko at UFC 141 last week. After his fight, he said at the post-fight news conference that he would welcome the opportunity to fight for the UFC in his home country. At the time of the card on April 14, it will be roughly 35 months since Gustafsson’s last fight in Stockholm, which was his last fight before signing with the UFC.
Though not official, the event is expected to air on Fuel TV as the second live UFC card on the cable channel in 2012. The first will take place Feb. 15 in Omaha, Neb.
The event in Sweden will be the UFC’s 10th country outside the United States. And as of now, it could be the fourth straight event outside the United States over a six-week stretch between February and April of this year. The promotion is scheduled to be in Japan on Feb. 26, Australia on March 3, Montreal on March 24 and now Stockholm on April 14.