Gustafsson teammate Ilir Latifi meets Mousasi in UFC on FUEL TV 9 main event

STOCKHOLM – Without original opponent Alexander Gustafsson (15-1 MMA, 7-1 UFC) off the card with a training cut, Gegard Mousasi (33-3-2 MMA, 0-0 UFC) now will face Gustafsson teammate Ilir Latifi (7-2 MMA, 0-0 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC on FUEL TV 9 main event.

UFC President Dana White on Tuesday night tweeted news of the new main event. The UFC had been scrambling to figure out what to do when the Swedish MMA Federation earlier Tuesday ruled Gustafsson ineligible for the fight because of a facial cut he suffered in a recent training session.

While the original Gustafsson-Mousasi main event was scheduled for five rounds, UFC officials confirmed to MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) that the Mousasi-Latifi fight, while still a headliner, will be just three rounds due to the short notice for Latifi.

UFC on FUEL TV 9 takes place at Stockholm’s Ericsson Globe Arena with a main card on FUEL TV following prelims on Facebook.

Latifi comes into his UFC debut on a three-fight win streak, all of which took place in 2012. “The Sledgehammer” has five of his seven career wins by stoppage. His most recent loss came at the hands of recent Bellator MMA light heavyweight tournament winner Emanuel Newton under the Shark Fights banner in July 2011. That bout was his first outside of Europe.

From a size standpoint, Mousasi will be facing an opponent with a significant size difference than Gustafsson. Gustafsson stands 6-foot-4, while Latifi checks in at just 5-8 against the 6-1 Mousasi.

Gustafsson was slated to headline his second UFC event in his home country – and would have been in good standing for top contendership for the light heavyweight title with a win. A timetable hasn’t been given for his return.

UFC officials were left with limited options when given the news that Gustafsson was 100 percent not possible for Saturday. Among those options may have been moving a co-main event between Ross Pearson and Ryan Couture up a spot into the main event. But with Latifi being tapped for his debut, that won’t be necessary.

The new UFC on FUEL TV 9 card includes:

MAIN CARD (FUEL TV, 2 p.m. ET)

• Ilir Latifi vs. Gegard Mousasi
• Ryan Couture vs. Ross Pearson
• Philip De Fries vs. Matt Mitrione
• Mike Easton vs. Brad Pickett
• Diego Brandao vs. Pablo Garza
• Akira Corassani vs. Robert Peralta

PRELIMINARY CARD (Facebook, 10:30 a.m. ET)

• Michael Johnson vs. Reza Madadi
• Adam Cella vs. Tor Troeng
• Adlan Amagov vs. Chris Spang
• Marcus Brimage vs. Conor McGregor
• Ben Alloway vs. Ryan LaFlare
• Michael Kuiper vs. Tom Lawlor
• Papy Abedi vs. Besam Yousef

For more on UFC on FUEL TV 9, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.

(Pictured: Gegard Mousasi)