Ovince Saint Preux has revealed that he won’t be fighting Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 282 on December 10th in Las Vegas after all, with Phillipe Lins now stepping to replace him.
No reason for Gustafsson’s withdrawal has emerged so far. Many had thought the 35-year-old former light-heavyweight title challenger was going to retire after his comeback fight in July following a two-year absence, which saw him being KO’d by Nikita Krylov in just 67 seconds.
That had been Gustafsson’s fourth loss in a row, all coming by way of stoppage, but it seems that the Swedish star didn’t want to end his career on such a disappointing defeat and so the fight against OSP had materialized.
Like Gustafsson, things haven’t been going so well for the 39-year-old OSP of late, though he did pick up a split decision win over Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua back in May.
However, OSP had been TKO’d by Jamahal Hill and KO’d by Tanner Boser prior to that and in total has lost six of his last 10 UFC fights, so talk of retirement looms over his head too coming into his next fight.
Now he’ll be facing another fighter who is no Spring chicken himself in the 37-year-old Lins.
Lins lost his UFC debut against Andrei Arlovski by unanimous decision and then like OSP was KO’d by Tanner Boser, but he has since dropped down to 205lbs and picked up a decision win over Marcin Prachnio.
OSP vs. Lins takes place on a UFC 282 card that’ll be headlined by a light-heavyweight title rematch between Jiri Prochazka and Glover Teixeira, while former champ Jan Blachowicz goes up against Magomed Ankalaev in the co-main event.
