Gunnar gets UFC Glasgow main event
Gunnar (16-2-1) will face Santiago Ponzinibbio (24-3) in the main event of UFC Fight Night 113 on July 16 in Glasgow, Scotland.
Ponzinibbio (ranked #13) is on a one heck of a run with four straight UFC wins, including two by TKO, and six wins in his last seven UFC bouts losing only to Lorenz Larkin since 2013. He is a diverse fighter being a solid striker with at black belt in BJJ. The Argentinian striker came into the UFC through The Ultimate Fighter Brazil where he was awarded Fight of the Season and also earned Knockout of the Season. He's also been awarded one Fight of the Night in the UFC for his fight against Larkin. Ponzinibbio trains at American Top Team where his training partners are fighter like Tyron Woodley, Jorge Masvidal, Junior Dos Santos, Yoel Romero, Thiago Alves, Hector Lombard, Douglas Lima, Dustin Poirier, just to name a few.
Gunnar (ranked #9) who is coming off a submission win over Alan Jouban at UFC London in March says he honoured to be headlining the Glasgow card but he had expressed his interested in the Scotland card to the UFC. “It’s tremendous to be in the main event. I was of course supposed to be in the main event in Belfast but that didn’t go as planned. We’ll nail it this time. This is great,” Gunnar said to MMA Fréttir in Iceland. There had been some talk about Gunnar facing Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson but Thompson is recovering from a knee surgery and won't be ready until the Fall or Winter. Even though he would have liked to get an opponent ranked above him Gunnar places emphasis on that he is very happy with this fight. “Nobody in the top 10 was available. They were either injured or already booked. I wanted to fight at this time so I had to get someone ranked below me, not that it matters greatly for me. These are all tough guys ... This is what I have now and I’m happy with it, main event and this is probably going to a be a hell of a fight. So, I’m happy and content.”
Gunnar says that he will probably camp in his home gym Mjölnir in Iceland to start with and then go to Dublin to train with his coach John Kavanagh at his gym. “I’ll start here at home to begin with but will probably finish my camp in Dublin and head to Scotland from there. Something like that, similar to my last camp. That’s pretty comfortable, a short trip from Dublin.”
