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What's the story?
UFC 234: Whittaker vs Gastelum proved to be a huge disappointment for Kelvin Gastelum.
In what was the first title shot of his career, Kelvin Gastelum was supposed to take on Robert Whittaker for the UFC Middleweight Championship. Unfortunately, that was not to be.
Robert Whittaker suffered injuries in his stomach and suffered from cramps and had a hernia. As a result, he had to undergo surgery, leading to a canceled main event for the UFC.
How did Gastelum react?
He declared himself the new UFC Middleweight Champion.
In case you didn't know...
UFC 234 was supposed to be the first-ever title defense of Robert Whittaker for his UFC Middleweight Championship.
However, that seems to be a fight that Whittaker will never participate in.
At UFC 221, he was supposed to take on Luke Rockhold, but injuries prevented him from participating in that one.
He was then supposed to defend against Yoel Romero, but that led to yet another problem. Yoel Romero did not make weight, and instead, Whittaker defeated him in a Catchweight bout.
This time, a hernia is what prevented him from making the fight. He ended up having emergency surgery after his symptoms increased overnight.
The heart of the matter
Kelvin Gastelum does not appear to deal with disappointment well.
Woken up in his hotel room by the UFC, he thought it was housekeeping for which he was being woken up so early. Instead, he had bad news waiting for him.
He woke up to the news that his fight with Robert Whittaker, for which he had been training so long, had been canceled.
Gastelum said in an interview, that he believed if a fighter was unable to perform after making weight then he was forfeiting. By forfeit, he was then the new UFC Middleweight Champion of the world.
Gastelum has declared himself the new champion and is willing to give Whittaker a shot at 'his' title when he comes back.
What's next?
This is not official at all and is Gastelum's way of dealing with rejection. It will be interesting to see how Dana White treats the situation.
