Kelvin Gastelum: I battled some demons

Kelvin Gastelum lost the Fight of the Night to Israel Adesanya for the interim middleweight championship at UFC 236 on April 13, 2019. Then for the first time in his career, he lost again, to Darren Till at UFC 244 on November 2, 2019. Now he fights Jack Hermansson in the co-main event of UFC on ESPN+ 30 on Saturday.

At a pre-fight media scrum, Gastelum talked about what happened, and where is now.

I’m actually in a really good place mentally and physically, which really wasn’t the case for my last two fights, said Gastelum. I’m not putting any excuses. There’s a lot of things that go on behind the scenes for a lot of fighters, but that’s in the past. … So now I’m in a good place mentally, physically. Man, I feel really good coming into this fight.

It was just some personal stuff going on behind the scenes in my life, and we eliminated that aspect, and I feel like a resurgence in me, and I really enjoyed the process for this camp, which really hasn’t been the case in the past. And waking up and training and dieting and losing the weight – I enjoyed every single day of this process, and so I’m in a good place mentally, physically. I’m ready to go.

Last year I was supposed to fight in February for the title, and in my head I was going to be a world champion, and that didn’t happen, Gastelum said. Fought in April and lost, fought in November and lost, so yeah, I think I did go through a little bit of depression. I gained like 30 pounds and had an injury, had to recover from that. I had to battle some demons in my off time. And you know what? I battled them. I conquered them, and here I am ready to go.

Jack’s one of those guys I’ve had my eye on because he’s a skilled guy, he’s a highly ranked guy, and I think it’s perfect for me to start climbing up the ranks again. I gotta make a statement. I’m looking for self-validation in this fight. After losing two in a row, I’ve never in my life had that happen, and I’m just at this point looking for self-validation, and I’m kind of looking to separate myself from the pack at this point.