Gustafsson, Werdum have differing views of sparring session

Photo by Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images

Apparently Alexander Gustafsson and Fabricio Werdum engaged in a spirited sparring session a few years ago, and they each remember it very differently.

Alexander Gustafsson is moving to heavyweight for the first time in the UFC, and will meet former champ Fabricio Werdum at UFC on ESPN 14 this weekend on Fight Island. Both men have been rather inactive of late, but apparently they have crossed path in training before. At the event’s press conference today, Gustafsson described an old sparring session that he claims he broke Vai Cavalo’s nose in:

#UFCFightIsland3 opponents Alexander Gustafsson and Fabricio Werdum disagree on who broke whose nose in a past sparring session. pic.twitter.com/y2RGjwVCTy

— MMAFighting.com (@MMAFighting) July 21, 2020

“No he hasn’t broken my nose. I broke his nose.”

Gustafsson then said the incident happened ten years ago, and he gave some more details.

“We had a good spar. I went all in, him and me and it was a good sparring. I don’t remember who I was fighting back then, but I was in camp, he was in camp for a fight, but make history short, I beat him in that sparring session. I beat him bad.”

When it was Werdum’s turn to talk (In Portuguese, through a translator), he refuted the claim to a degree, but doesn’t say he got the better of Gus or anything. He just says he didn’t have much of a chance because it was two on one:

“I think he made that part up. It was cut but there wasn’t a broken nose. They were training at Mark Munoz’s gym, he saw Gustafsson and Travis Browne, offered himself to go train with them, you know, basically training against both of them at the same time. So, many rounds and (laughs) they set him up.”

The fight will take place third from the top on a 15-fight card on ESPN this weekend. The show will be headlined by a middleweight scrap between former 185-pound champ Robert Whittaker and Darren Till.