Kelvin Gastelum appears to return to the department’s victory column, which has become even more interesting in the past month.
Gastherm will return to action this Saturday against Dustin Stolzfuss at Nosh UFC in San Antonio. Dricus du Plessis, who has been playing against Joe Pyfer since his most recent match at UFC 316, dropped his middleweight title at UFC 319 to Khamzat Chimaev in August.
After Nassoldeen’s Imavov’s dominant victory at UFC Paris last Saturday, Chimaev’s next opponent hunt will be three names: Imabov and headliners for UFC Vancouver, Leniel de Ridder and Anthony Hernandez. When asked who could give Chimaev his toughest fight, Gastherum weighed.
“Man, I really think RDR is someone you consider as a serious threat,” Gustherm told MMA Fighting. “I think he’s that person.
“His size, his style is something to deal with. I mean, when I saw him fight (Robert) Whitaker, I was blown away like a size difference. I know how big he is. He made him look light.”
Gastelum hopes to get back on track after losing to Pyfer and is pleased that a chapter of his career is behind him after spending nearly seven months preparing for a standout preparation for the candidate series. Pyfer retreated from his original reservation at UFC Mexico on the day of the fight and was forced to be pushed back to UFC 316.
The middleweight division certainly has a new look with Chimeh as the champion. And the mixed bag of the MMA community couldn’t be more impressed with how people saw Chimaev’s performance against Du Plessis.
In fact, Gastherum decided to bring in someone who helped Chimaev prepare for his first world title fight for his training camp fiance stretch.
“It’s very impressive how dominant it was,” Gastherm said. “I mean, his wrestling, nobody could do that to DDP. These are some of the best guys he’s fought, Izzy, Whitaker, etc.
“And actually one of the people he had at camp was Pat Downey. I helped Cam That to finish the camp right after he came to my training camp and helped him finish camp. It was cool.