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Kelvin Gastelum is coming off his second loss in a row after being defeated by Darren Till in the latter's Middleweight debut. Due to his incredible performance in the title fight against Israel Adesanya earlier this year, many expected Gastelum to be a terrible match-up for Till.
It certainly wasn't a banger as many had expected, with Till choosing to respect Gastelum's power and kept his distance throughout the fight. Gastelum, on the other hand, was having trouble with his reach, proving that Till is huge even at UFC Middleweight.
Till ended up edging out Gastelum in a split decision victory, though many fans put into question the first judge who scored the contest 30-27 for Gastelum (as it wasn't even close to being that).
Till walked out the decisive winner and will likely be taking another step up in competition. As for Gastelum, he's going to need to rebuild again and he acknowledged that in his post-fight statement.
“This is disappointing to say the least. But I’m very positive I’m gonna come back next year and make some real changes, changes that will hopefully impact my performances from now on because this was... yeah. Thank you all for your support and I love all you guys, I leave my heart and soul out there for you guys. Thank you.”
You can watch the video below:
Gastelum was in a bit of controversy before the fight because of his weigh-in where he managed to make weight a minute or so before the deadline. Moreover, when he stood on the scale, he was accused of having leaned on his coach to manipulate the scale. His coach was the first to deny it and we'll have to wait and see if he'll be penalized for doing so.
Until then, Gastelum is likely going to have to fight a non-top 5 contender to make his way up again.
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