Gastelum to 'take my punishment' after missing weight, but still eyes 170-pound title

Kelvin Gastelum

When Kelvin Gastelum thinks about his unanimous-decision loss to Tyron Woodley at UFC 183, some complicated feelings arise.

Feelings like regret at even taking the bout after “some issues” arose in the weeks leading up to it, resulting in a disastrous failed weight cut that left him temporarily hospitalized the day before the fight. Also feelings like pride at showing up and doing what he said he’d do, even under circumstances that were less than ideal, and even if the end result was his first professional loss.

“I grew from it, I’ll tell you that much,” Gastelum (10-1 MMA, 5-1 UFC) told MMAjunkie. “I learned a lot about myself, and I wouldn’t give back that experience. It was good, and it was bad.”

The bad was pretty obvious. Fans saw it on the Friday afternoon in late January when Gastelum stood on the scale weighing 180 pounds – nine pounds over the welterweight limit for non-title bouts – and looking like a man who would have much rather been at home and in bed.

According to Gastelum, the problems started well before that – and got so bad that he considered pulling out of the fight altogether.

Tyron Woodley and Kelvin Gastelum

“I don’t ever make excuses, and I don’t want to say what it was that happened, but a lot of things were going on in my life at the time,” Gastelum said. “I was thinking about maybe not taking the fight or maybe pulling out of the fight a few weeks before, but that’s not my style. I don’t pull out of fights.”

Still, when he found himself in the hospital the day before the fight, a part of him thought the choice might no longer be his to make. He wound up getting cleared in time for fight night, but even then, Gastelum said, he was “not 100 percent at all.”

“I was kind of taken by surprise that the UFC wanted me to continue to take this fight,” Gastelum said. “I was surprised by that, but I was just going with the flow. They were telling me what to do, and I was doing it.”

But there came a point where Gastelum faced a difficult choice. He could go ahead with the fight, knowing that his chances of beating an opponent the caliber of Woodley while in a severely diminished state were not, to put it mildly, all that great. He could also withdraw from the bout at the last minute, citing health concerns, and likely angering his employer as well as some of his fans in the process.

Neither were good options, Gastelum realized. Did he want to risk being a loser or a quitter?

“The way I saw it, I signed the contract to do the job,” he said. “Then I did it to the best of my ability that day.”

It’s just that, against Woodley, and on that particular day, Gastelum’s best wasn’t good enough. Not only did he see his UFC winning streak come to an end, he was also effectively driven from the welterweight division by UFC President Dana White, who declared that, after two failed attempts at making weight in his last three bouts, “Gastelum’s a 185-pounder now.”

Gastelum got that message, even if he doesn’t agree with it. While his next assignment involves coaching opposite Efrain Escudero on the upcoming second season of “The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America,” his longterm plans still haven’t changed.

“I still plan on being the welterweight champion one day, and I’m going to work my butt off to make sure that happens,” Gastelum said. “Dana wants to punish me? He wants to put me up in the middleweight bracket? That’s fine. I’ll take my punishment. I’ll take responsibility for my actions and face it, but it doesn’t mean I won’t try to fight my way back down to welterweight.”

Plus, he added, the experience wasn’t all bad. For one thing, Gastelum learned that he could show up feeling sick and slow and flat, and he could still hang with a top welterweight contender. He also gained some motivation to take back into the gym with him, which has proven to be bad news for some of his training partners.

“I’ve been beating on them pretty bad, to be honest,” Gastelum said. “I think I might be a little angry because of my last performance. It definitely lit a fire under me. I want to get back in there and beat the crap out of somebody to make a statement. I want to let everyone know that last performance was unacceptable for me.”

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