Kelvin
Gastelum should not expect anything close to a soft landing in
his return to the
Ultimate Fighting Championship welterweight division.
“The Ultimate Fighter 17” winner will toe the line against former
Cage Fury Fighting Championships titleholder
Sean Brady
in a
UFC on ESPN 52 showcase this Saturday at the Moody Center in
Austin, Texas. Gastelum steps back into the spotlight having lost
five of his past seven bouts. He last competed at UFC 287, where he
outpointed
Chris
Curtis to a unanimous decision in their three-round
confrontation on April 8.
As Gastelum fixes his sights on Brady and their forthcoming clash
at 170 pounds, a look at five of the many moments that have come to
define him:
1. A Dark Horse No More
Unyielding aggression, sharp standup and well-executed takedowns
spurred Gastelum to a split decision over former
Ring of
Combat champion
Uriah Hall in
the middleweight tournament final at “The Ultimate Fighter 17”
Finale on April 13, 2013 inside the Mandalay Bay Events Center in
Las Vegas. All three judges scored it 29-28: Sal D’Amato for Hall,
Adalaide Byrd and Junichiro Kamijo for Gastelum. Hall looked out of
sorts at times, perhaps caught off-guard by his opponent’s
willingness to exchange and wade through his punches and kicks. The
Team Tiger Schulmann product peaked in the second round, where
he tagged Gastelum with jabs, completed a takedown and executed a
beautiful belly-to-back suplex. Gastelum was not deterred. He
secured a pair of takedowns in the third round and, despite being
reversed twice, spent enough time in top position to earn the split
verdict.
2. Short of the Mark
“The Ultimate Fighter” Season 16 semifinalist
Neil Magny
filled in as a short-notice replacement for
Matt Brown
and took a split decision from Gastelum in the UFC Fight Night 78
headliner on Nov. 21, 2015 at the Monterrey Arena in Monterrey,
Mexico. All three members of the cageside judiciary saw it 48-47:
Eric
Colon and Marcos Rosales for Magny, Cardo Urso for Gastelum.
Neither man was willing to break. Magny controlled the early stages
with his length and pace. He advanced to full mount and climbed to
the back in the first round, struck for multiple takedowns in the
second and dictated the terms of the engagement for much of the
third. Gastelum, perhaps sensing the moment in his first main event
assignment was slipping away, made his move in Round 4, where he
floored Magny twice, once with a right hook and later with a left.
The
Kings MMA export maintained his momentum in the fifth, as he
delivered a takedown inside the first minute and later scrambled
into top position when Magny responded with a takedown of his own.
Still, it was not enough to overcome the deficit he faced on two of
the scorecards.
3. Down for ‘The Count’
Gastelum knocked out former Ultimate Fighting Championship
middleweight titleholder
Michael
Bisping in the first round of their UFC Fight Night 122 main
event on Nov. 25, 2017 at Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai, China.
Three weeks to the day after being deposed as 185-pound champion,
Bisping bit the dust 2:30 into Round 1. His decision to replace a
suspended
Anderson
Silva on short notice did not go according to plan. Gastelum
waited for his opportunity and did not miss. He drilled Bisping
with a two-punch combination, punctuating the quick volley with a
destructive left hook that dropped “The Count” where he stood.
Gastelum mopped up what was left with follow-up punches, as the
Rafael
Cordeiro protégé tied a bow on a signature victory.
4. A Contender Emerges
Stock in Gastelum soared to an all-time high in the UFC 224
co-headliner on May 12, 2018, when he eked out a split decision
against former
Strikeforce
champion
Ronaldo
Souza at Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro. All three cageside
judges scored it 29-28: Guilherme Bravo and
Chris Lee for
“The Ultimate Fighter 17” winner, Sal D’Amato for Souza. It did not
start well for Gastelum, who was forced to survive a harrowing
ground exchange with the submission savant in the first round.
Souza swept into top position under threat of a leg lock, advanced
to full mount on two occasions, chipped away with ground-and-pound
and pursued an armbar for the better part of a minute. However, all
the work was a drag on his gas tank. Gastelum turned the tide in
the middle stanza, where he sat down “Jacare” with a left cross,
stayed out of clinch range and had the Brazilian jiu-jitsu black
belt teetering on the end of his punches. The third round was too
close to call, as the middleweight contenders fired away at one
another. Gastelum flurried late on the exhausted Souza, perhaps
tipping the scales in his favor.
5. Second Fiddle
Israel
Adesanya laid claim to the interim middleweight crown with a
unanimous decision over Gastelum in an electrifying UFC 236 co-main
event on April 13, 2019 at State Farm Arena in Atlanta. “The Last
Stylebender” swept the scorecards with 48-46 marks from all three
judges, as he emerged as the last man standing in what was later
named Sherdog’s runaway “Fight of the Year.” Their 25-minute
engagement was marked by wild shifts in momentum. Gastelum drew
first blood in the first round, where he had the City Kickboxing
cornerstone reeling with a sneaky but powerful right hook. Adesanya
answered in the second, first with a chopping right hand that
resulted in a knockdown and later with a spinning back elbow that
revved the crowd’s engines. As they headed to the championship
rounds, it appeared to be anyone’s fight. Gastelum opened a cut
under the New Zealand-based kickboxer’s right eye and staggered him
badly with a head kick, driving forward with punches in a bid to
finish late in Round 4. Still, Adesanya refused to wilt. He did his
best work over the final five minutes, as he threatened Gastelum
with a standing guillotine, transitioned to a triangle choke and
scrambled to his feet. Adesanya knocked down the fading Kings MMA
rep three times in the last half of the fifth round and was closing
in on a stoppage when the horn sounded, an audible buzz sweeping
across the 14,297 fans in attendance.