UFC 224: The best and worst

#2 Best: Gastelum freshening up the title picture at 185lbs

Kelvin Gastelum beat Jacare Souza in a close decision

While it wasn’t a flawless performance, plenty of observers actually scored his fight the other way in favor of Jacare Souza.

Kelvin Gastelum picked up his 4th win in 5 fights at Middleweight in Saturday’s co-main event, and that puts him firmly into the title picture at 185lbs.

With the last man to defeat him, Chris Weidman, still on the shelf with a hand injury, an argument could easily be made for Gastelum warranting the next title shot, in fact.

Gastelum has threatened to break into title contention before, most notably at 170lbs back in 2015, but he’s always seemed to fall at the final hurdle.

But pitted against arguably his trickiest foe to date on Saturday, the TUF 17 winner bounced back from a horrible first round to largely outstrike former top contender Jacare Souza, dropping him in the second round, and in the end, he earned a split decision victory.

With the Middleweight title up for grabs at June’s UFC 225 when champion Robert Whittaker faces interim champ Yoel Romero, a fight between the winner of that one and Gastelum could easily end up being booked towards the end of 2018.

If that fight ends up being between Whittaker and Gastelum, it’d represent a really fresh look for the division, finally moving away from the Jacare/Romero/Rockhold/Weidman/Bisping era that’s largely ruled over 185lbs since 2013. And that’d only be a good thing.