The Vikings of Scandinavia were famous a thousand years ago for being amongst the most fearsome warriors in the world. Sailing in their long boats, they terrorised the English, Irish and Scottish, and not to mention the French and even the Moors in Spain. So it is no surprise that the new UFC in Scandinavia might be producing its first star warrior after less than a month of holding fights.

The first Scandinavian UFC fight was held in Stockholm’s 12,000-seat Ericsson Globe Arena on April 14, 2012 with two middleweight fights between the Italian Alessio “Legionarius” Sakara and American Brian Stann, and also Papy “Makambo” Abedi who took on Oklahoman James Head. Since then the Scandinavian UFC team haven’t been sitting on their hands or even using them to while away the hours playing Partypoker, instead they have been setting up new fights. One of the latest has been between the Swedish Alexander Gustafsson and Thiago Silva from Brazil.

Gustafsson won, with a 30-27 30-27 29-28 decision. According to Brian Mallon of The Independent newspaper, Gustafsson managed to keep his head and use the vast number of Swedish fans supporting him to his advantage. In the fight, which lasted for 15 minutes, Gustafsson ‘peppered’ Silva with punches. So confident was the Gustafsson team after the fight, that they even proposed their young fighter should take on Jon ‘The Mauler’ Jones.

This would probably be a fight too far for the young Swede, as Jones is an opponent really only for fighters at the very top of their games. It is also important not to overstretch yourself too early on. UFC and MMA are littered with fighters who have got ahead of themselves too early and paid the price in their career for ever more. Still, it is good to see this fighter has ambition as well as very obvious skill. Perhaps all he needs is a suitably Viking nick name. How about Alexander “Blood Axe” Gustafsson?