After title shot disappeared, Gastelum ‘1,000 percent ready’ second time around
ATLANTA — The transpacific flight from Melbourne, Australia, to Los Angeles is 16 hours long — which is a very, very long time to think about a fight that didn’t happen.
It has been two months since Kelvin Gastelum saw a middleweight title fight ripped away at the last minute, due to a hernia suffered by champion Robert Whittaker. Gastelum was supposed to challenge Whittaker at UFC 234 on Feb. 10 in Melbourne, but the fight was canceled the morning of the bout.
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The whole situation made a long flight home for Gastelum, who fights out of Southern California, feel even longer.
“I felt uneasy coming back from Australia, like I didn’t know what I was supposed to do,” Gastelum said. “I felt on the edge the entire flight.
“I did meet this dude who was sitting next to me though, and became good friends with the guy. He was this entrepreneur guy, who had this dating service — it was kind of weird. He travels all around the world, trying to hook people up. Shows men how to meet women. He was pretty much the real life ‘Hitch.’ It was weird, but it was funny.”
Gastelum (16-3) faces Israel Adesanya (16-0) for the interim middleweight title this weekend at UFC 236 at State Farm Arena. The winner is expected to meet Whittaker for the undisputed belt later this year.
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The quick turnaround, coupled with the disappointment of not even getting a chance to fight in Melbourne, led to a “roller coaster” training camp, Gastelum admits. He also came down with a respiratory infection when he got back into training.
“That beginning phase of camp, there were just so many emotions,” Gastelum said. “All the work that goes into one specific goal, and then it gets taken away from you. It was hard to get re-motivated, even though this is a big fight and a big opponent. It was kind of hard to start camp again.
“But I did it. We went through the B.S., and the roller coaster — and there was a lot of it. I got sick for two weeks. I couldn’t run or train like I wanted. But we went through it, and we are 1,000 percent ready to take this belt.”
Saturday will mark the six-year anniversary of Gastelum’s UFC debut, which took place at The Ultimate Fighter 17 Finale in 2013. It has taken him six years to appear in his first UFC title fight. By comparison, the 29-year-old Adesanya made his UFC debut 14 months ago.
Any way you look at it, it has been a long road for Gastelum to arrive at his first UFC championship. This journey really began when he saw Georges St-Pierre knock out Matt Hughes to win a UFC title in 2006. If you look at it that way, the delay he has experienced over the past two months isn’t too bad.
“That was when I first started watching UFC, when ‘GSP’ beat Matt Hughes and dropped to his knees, started crying,” Gastelum said. “It was the most incredible scene I had ever seen in my life to that point. It was really impactful. And I thought, ‘Man, that’d be cool if that could be me one day.'”