Daniel Cormier admits there was a brief thought of not giving Kelvin Gastelum a post-fight interview at UFC Fight Night 259.
Gastelum (19-10 MMA, 14-10 UFC) outlasted Dustin Stoltzfus in Saturday’s Noche UFC main card at Front Bank Arena in San Antonio, Texas – a fight he came in five pounds over weight. Stoltzfus (16-8 MMA, 3-7 UFC) accepted the fight regardless, and Gastelum was fined 35 percent of his purse for the weight miss.
With Gastelum’s history of missing weight on numerous occasions, Cormier found himself in a tough spot.
“Guys, I’ve got to be honest with you: Kelvin Gastelum, I respect greatly because of what he has done in his career. but I’ve got to be honest, man,” Cormier said on his YouTube channel. “Missing weight by that much – I don’t know how to judge these performances. I’ve dealt with this twice now. I watched him win (over) Daniel Rodriguez in Saudi Arabia after missing weight – broke Rodriguez’s win streak.
“I watched him (at Noche UFC) beat a guy in Dustin Stoltzfus, who if you truly knew his story, all that he’s dealing with, to go out there and fight a guy that’s that heavy, it’s unfair, man. I don’t know how to judge Gastelum. Honestly, it was so bad that we thought about not doing the interview because you should feel something negatively whenever you don’t make the weight or you show up like that. I get it: He took the fight on four weeks’ notice. But that’s a month to get ready.”
Punching his ticket to the UFC through winning Season 17 of “The Ultimate Fighter,” Gastelum immediately moved down to welterweight upon winning the show at 185 pounds. However, after struggling to make weight three times – once coming in so heavy for his bout against Donald Cerrone in 2016 that the New York State Athletic Commission suspended him for six months, Gastelum was forced to move back to middleweight by the UFC.
He fought top contender Sean Brady at welterweight in December 2023, but the weight issues didn’t stop there. His next bout against Daniel Rodriguez was originally scheduled at welterweight, but was moved to middleweight after Gastelum had issues making weight.
