UFC on ESPN+11 Results: Anthony Smith Beats Alexander Gustafsson Into Retirement

Another weekend, another UFC event where a fighter retires. This time, it was UFC on ESPN+11, which took place in Sweden and saw hometown hero Alexander Gustafsson face Anthony Smith in the main event. And guess who decided to hang up the gloves after their definitive loss?

Honestly, Gustafsson has wanted to call it quits before, so it should come as no surprise that after going three and a half rounds against Smith and never really edging ahead is going to discourage him. They mostly kickboxed, with Smith landing just a tiny bit more and a tiny bit harder, for the first two rounds. The Swede got Smith down in the third round, but nothing came of it, and when Gustafsson screwed up a throw in the fourth and Smith took his back, the resulting rear naked choke had Gustafsson’s name all over it.

Gustafsson had his moments, but moments do not a future champ make. And he knew it.

So if this retirement sticks, where does that leave us? Smith lost pretty convincingly to champ Jon Jones. I feel like we’re going to just have to wait for Jones to fail another drug test (if that’s even possible at this point) or commit some drug-related crime before we can get some new blood in that champ slot.