Kennedy vs. Gastelum, pending commission approval

Kelvin Gastelum so egregiously failed to make weight for a welterweight fight with Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone at UFC 205 that he never bothered to weigh in. Dana White said he would never fight at welterweight again. The New York State Athletic Commission suspended him for six months for the unprofessionalism. And middleweight Tim Kennedy called Gastelum a lazy, unprofessional, disrespectful a******.

Now Kennedy had been scheduled to fight Rashad Evans at UFC 205, but Evans was not licensed due to an irregularity on his CAT scan. The fight was simply moved to UFC 206, but the Ontario commission likewise declined to license ‘Suga’ so the UFC was still looking for an opponent for Kennedy.

UFC 205 was the greatest card in MMA history. UFC 207 is the return of Ronda Rousey. UFC 206 had light heavyweight Daniel Cormier vs. challenger Anthony Johnson, but now Cormier is out. The new main event is Max Holloway vs. Anthony Pettis for the interim belt. It’s a great fight, but not a great main event for a PPV. In short, the card could use a great fight, and it has one.

Kennedy will get an opportunity to follow up his verbal beating with a physical one. The pair will fight on December 10 at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The fight was announced during theUFC officials today announced the bout during Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 101 broadcast. However, there is an if – Gastelum has to be cleared to fight by the Ontario commission.

Gastelum plans to appeal the suspension. If that is unsuccessful, or cannot be scheduled in a timely manner, and the Ontario commission recognizes it, then the Kennedy vs. Gastelum fight may be off. It is highly unlikely that the UFC would announce a big fight on the random hope that a commission will overturn a suspension, so it is likely that if Gastelum expresses contrition and an apology or some similar action, then the suspension will be lifted.

UFC 206
Max Holloway vs. Anthony Pettis for interim featherweight belt
Matt Brown vs. Donald Cerrone
Dooho Choi vs. Cub Swanson
Tim Kennedy vs. Kelvin Gastelum (if)
Emil Meek vs. Jordan Mein
Misha Cirkunov vs. Nikita Krylov
Olivier Aubin-Mercier vs. Drew Dober
Valerie Letourneau vs. Viviane Pereira
John Makdessi vs. Lando Vannata
Rustam Khabilov vs. Jason Saggo
Mitch Gagnon vs. Matthew Lopez
Zach Makovsky vs. Dustin Ortiz