Kelvin Gastelum Says He Was Not At 100% For Bout With Israel Adesanya
Kelvin Gastelum narrowly missed out on an interim title by losing to Israel Adesanya. Now he is claiming that he was not completely healthy for that fight.
At UFC 236, Kelvin Gastelum took on Israel Adesanya for the interim middleweight title. This bout came together after, then champ, Robert Whittaker was pulled from a bout with Gastelum, due to a hernia. In what is expected to be the fight of the year, Gastelum lost a decision to Adesanya.
Since then, Adesanya has gone on to beat Whittaker, to unify the belt, at UFC 243. However, it has since come out that Gastelum was not at 100% for his fight. Speaking with TMZ, he explained the string of illness he had in the camp for the fight.
“People don’t really know that, and I don’t come out in the media and say that, but, yeah, I was sick for about two weeks. I got the staph. It came back from when I had it in Australia…had the staph, had congestion in my lungs, so I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t really breathe.”
Gastelum then went into further detail about what was going on before the fight.
“I was throwing up, so I couldn’t really train for about two weeks. People don’t really know: I stopped taking antibiotics six, seven days before the fight. People don’t really know it, but I was probably 60%, 70% for the fight.”
If what Kelvin Gastelum is saying is true, that makes the fight all that more impressive. If he can get past Darren Till, at UFC 244, perhaps we can see a rematch with he and Israel Adesanya.
