Corey Anderson Passes On Fight With Luke Rockhold
Corey Anderson isn’t happy with the UFC right now. Despite winning his last three fights against some of the biggest names in the UFC light heavyweight division, Anderson feels like the UFC is just giving him any old fight, instead of fights geared towards getting him a title shot.
A couple of weeks ago, it looked like the number seven ranked Anderson would be getting a fight with former title challenger, Alexander Gustafsson. After the two agreed to fight on social media. However, just a few hours later, a report came out that said Gustafsson would fight Anthony Smith instead. You can read more about that here.
Obviously this didn’t sit well with Anderson, as he told Ariel on The Ariel Helwani Show.
“I was talking to Ali [Gustafsson] and I guess they wanted the fight to go or whatever, saying ‘If Corey beat Gus he’s the number one contender.’ And all of a sudden they gave him the other guy that just fought for a title.”
Instead, Anderson claims that the UFC offered him Luke Rockhold at UFC 238 instead.
“So now it’s like, what’s going on? I don’t think the winner of that fight should get the title shot because they just fought and both lost. But I wouldn’t put it past them. So then they called me a couple of days later to fight Luke Rockhold in Chicago. Okay, so I’ll just dominate three top ten guys, proven what I need to get to the title fight but they’re calling me to fight Luke Rockhold? A 185’er who just got knocked out? He’s not getting a title fight anytime soon, so why do they want me to fight him?
“They think I’m just a number, think I’m just going to be here to fill in fights. That’s not where I’m at anymore. I have a family now and I’m not her to just fight to fight. I’m not fighting for myself or for fun. I got to support my family and my goals. My goals are to get the belt.
“I don’t plan on fighting forever, so if I keep taking these dumb fights or just any fights, I’m just going to be here fighting and fighting and fighting. I will have fought 30 more times and gotten no closer to a title fight because I’m just taking whatever fight they throw to me.”
One fight the 29 year old Anderson would want, is Dominick Reyes, who is just coming off a split decision win over Volkan Oezdemir at last weekend’s UFC London.
Anderson last fought in December, when he beat Ilir Latifi at UFC 232, via unanimous decision. It was his third fight in 2018 and third win.
Who would you like to see Anderson fight next?
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