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Kelvin Gastelum dropped in the rankings following a 2-fight losing skid. The first one saw his stock rise as he lost by decision to Israel Adesanya in an all-time classic Interim title fight. Following that, he rested up for 7 months and returned to welcome Darren Till to the Middleweight Division in the co-main event of UFC 244 at Madison Square Garden.
That fight didn't go in Gastelum's favor either, with Till being pragmatic and utilizing a safe-but-effective gameplan to edge out Gastelum on the judges' scorecards. It's not known when he'll return but he has the perfect opponent who made the first step by calling him out.
The Swedish Middleweight Contender Jack Hermansson is coming off a devastating knockout loss to rising contender Jared Cannonier. While Cannonier was supposed to fight Robert Whittaker at UFC 248, the Australian pulled out of that contest.
As for Hermansson, he has been recovering and revealed on Twitter that he's ready to get back to business. His first order? To call out a big Middleweight name and Kelvin Gastelum was the one who he revealed as a prospective fight.
Calling out Gastelum on Twitter, he said:
We love the idea of this fight. It's #6 (Hermansson) vs #7 (Gastelum) and a perfect way for either of the men to get back in the W column. Moreover, there's going to be a sense of urgency to win the fight and stylistically, it's certainly an exciting bout as well.
Hermansson has a strong ground game that he would try to utilize, but Gastelum's grappling is of a very high level as well. Usually, when you have two fighters with a strong grappling base, it results in a stand-up type of fight, which is what we saw with Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington this past December at UFC 245.
Will Gastelum accept Hermansson's call-out? Or will he try to replace Robert Whittaker against Jared Cannonier and jump the rankings?
