Volkan Oezdemir pulled out of his scheduled bout with Alexander Gustafsson that was set for UFC 227 on August 4th at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and now “The Mauler” has pulled out according to his management team. “Alex Gustafsson is out of UFC 227 with a minor injury. The injury occurred last week.”

“”we have been working closely with the UFC doctors, our doctors in Sweden, and the experts at the UFC Performance Institute. We have been advised that Alex has a minor injury and he will not be permitted to compete at UFC 227. Had Alex been fit to fight, we were prepared to face Roundtree or anyone else the UFC had asked us; including DC Cormier at heavyweight. Alex will be fighting again very soon. He will give his side of the story shortly. We don’t care who the opponent is. But whomever we face it should be for the meaningful result of the LHW UFC Title.”

The “Mauler” is coming off a fifth-round KO of Glover Teixeira at UFC in Stockholm back in May 2017, but has been waiting for an opponent.  He will have to wait for either a new opponent for the card, or wait to be re-scheduled.

Sunday headliner winner in Hamburg, Germany Anthony Smith wasted little time in calling him out Gustafsson for the bout in Los Angeles prior to news coming out about the injury.

UFC 227 is stacked with both the bantamweight and flyweight title on the line as Champ T.J. Dillashaw takes on Cody Garbrandt and Champ Demetrious Johnson faces Henry Cejudo.