Kelvin Gastelum is an interesting fighter in the welterweight division. At just 23 years of age and only 4 years into his career, Gastelum is set to take on a top 3 opponent in Tyron Woodley at UFC 183-Silva vs. Diaz. After winning The Ultimate Fighter 17 at middleweight, Gastelum dropped down and racked up four wins to earn himself a #7 ranking. He’s sitting pretty at 10-0 with a 70% finishing rate, and half of his wins have been in the UFC. At a glance, he appears to be a star on the rise.

However, he’s been in some very tough fights. His wins over Uriah Hall and Rick story were each split decisions that easily could have gone the other way. He gets hit cleanly every time he goes out, has been taken down by Hall, Story and Musoke and has had his back taken by each of them as well. He was dropped by Story and may even have been finished if the round didn’t end. But no matter how bad it gets, he somehow always seems to find a way to win. In this article, the skills that make him an exciting up and comer will be examined alongside the flaws that may hold him back.

As a southpaw, Gastelum is among the rare breed that actually possesses a good jab. He will use it to measure distance, blind his opponents, press his opponents back and set up his power shots.

In the first frame, Gastelum stands just out of range. He enters with a stiff jab that hits Story, who then ducks and raises his hands in anticipation of a follow-up. However, Gastelum pauses for a split second in the third frame, breaking the rhythm and stopping to observe the change in head position. He throws a new jab to where Story’s head now is, allowing him to find the targeting for the left hand that cracks Story in the jaw. When he is allowed to establish his jab, he becomes very dangerous.

With Melancon backed against the cage, Gastelum leaps in with a jab. Landing flush, the jab lines up a powerful left hand. Gastelum maintains his distance and throws another hard 1-2. Melancon, desperate to escape the punishment he’s taking, reaches both hands out in the hopes of holding on and walks directly into a big left uppercut that puts him down. Gastelum scrambles for the back as he does so well, securing the RNC finish. Unchallenged, Gastelum becomes a solid combination puncher who lines his bombs up with his nice jab. The problem is what happens when the opponent does challenge him.

Gastelum hops in with a jab against Musoke, who returns a jab of his own that bounces off the top of Gastelum’s head. While the jab should have been completely ineffective, it actually causes Gastelum to abandon his stance and stand straight up. Observe his feet in the first two frames. While entering range, Gastelum has a nasty habit of taking both feet off the ground. He quite literally hops to close distance, which makes it very easy to stop his momentum by merely touching him. As Gastelum attempts to reset, he is caught leaning back by a sneaky left hook from Musoke. It would be hard to find an example of worse positioning. Gastelum’s feet are completely square, his knees and hips are completely straight and his hands are in no position to do anything. He is full of these defensive lapses, always bouncing around then tending to lean back and come up tall when trying to evade strikes. It got him in trouble against Rick Story.

Gastelum switches stances as he runs in, attempting a switching right hand. When Story pulls back and extends his hands, Gastelum stops in place, squares his feet and stands straight up. Story lands a hook nearly identical to the one that Musoke landed, and hurts Gastelum.

As Gastelum backpedals, he shows a lot about who he is. When he hits the fence with nowhere left to go, he bites down on his mouthpiece and starts slinging leather. He trades left, right, left, right combinations with Story as he attempts to punch his way out of danger. But even more telling, when Story steps back to reevaluate the situation, Gastelum chases him. Instead of taking the space he is being given, he tries to charge forward and hurt Story. Unfortunately for him, Story sticks his right hand out to find Gastelum’s face then lays him out with a tight left straight.

As damning a sequence as this is on a technical level, it reveals the gritty toughness that carries Gastelum through each bout. When pushed, he pushes back just as hard. He is not afraid to trade big punches and is not deterred just by being hit. He is willing to push through the pain and has an excellent chin. In fact, that knockdown involves balance as much as anything else. Note that Gastelum falls in as he throws his left hand, causing his right foot to step forward in order to compensate for his weight going off balance. Story’s left hand lands in the exact moment that his foot is stepping and his face is leaning forward. This is another bad habit Gastelum displays almost every time he throws his left hand. It is a tradeoff that sacrifices balance, defensive liability and power for extra reach.

Remember how I mentioned that Gastelum has been taken down multiple times? Falling in with his punches has a lot to do with that. Here, against Musoke, Gastelum comes in with a 3-2 combination. Note again the hopping in as he throws the right hand. When he lands, he attempts to unload a big left hand. Musoke is prepared though, and slips the left hand. Gastelum is coming forward so hard that he runs into Musoke’s shoulder, which stops him in place. Musoke uses that shoulder and arm to drive Gastelum back to the cage, where he snags Gastelum’s left leg. Gastelum wraps his left arm around Musoke’s neck in an attempted guillotine, which only serves to give Musoke another leverage point to lift Gastelum with a huge high crotch. Musoke slams Gastelum into the canvas, then takes his back as Gastelum gets to his knees and tries to stand.

There is a strong theme of Gastelum making positional errors. However, it isn’t toughness alone that carries him through fights. He shows flashes of brilliance, such as in this sequence against Story:

Circling outside the lead foot, Gastelum gets Story to start circling with him. As Gastelum circles, Story needs to be constantly ready to turn towards him. Gastelum takes advantage by quickly changing directions and hitting Story with a hard jab, then narrowly missing a right hook from his new angle. He begins circling to his left again, only to quickly change directions again with a left low kick. Finally, he circles to his left before leaping in with a right hook and another right low kick.

Gastelum shows excellent use of misdirection to establish angles of attack. His ability to lead the opponent one way then cut to the other is great when he chooses to use it. And his strike selection while doing so makes sense. If you circle outside an opponent’s lead foot, they must essentially square their stance if they wish to turn with you. Doing so allows you to attack the angle inside their lead foot when they adjust to you moving outside it. Additionally, to turn in that way the weight must be on the lead foot. So when Gastelum throws the low kick, he knows Story will have difficulty both checking and defending the angle at the same time. Finally, if a lead hook is timed correctly it’s possibly to run them into it the same way Gastelum ran Story into the first jab.

And though it gets him in trouble, Gastelum’s toughness has to be appreciated. Especially if he can be taught to fire back at the right time.

In his most recent fight against Jake Ellenberger, Gastelum showed some improvement in his defense. He gets caught with a jab while attempting the same stance switching shenanigans that got him hurt by Story. Then when Ellenberger puts a right hand behind his jab, Gastelum resorts to his typical defense of leaning back and parrying. However, this time he doesn’t lean particularly far and maintains his foot position. As a result, he stays in range and is in fairly good position, while Ellenberger is overextended on his right. Thus, Gastelum throws a sharp 1-2 back at Ellenberger.

It is my hope that this hints at the future of Gastelum’s development. He’s always been one to either trade shots or pull straight back. But in this case, despite getting himself in a bad spot coming in, he manages to adjust and return fire skillfully. Fighting off the back foot tends to be one of the last skills to materialize in a fighter, so even hints of it now give me hope.

It’s important to remember just how young into his career Gastelum is. At about the same point in his own career, current welterweight king Robbie Lawler—at that time as much a brawler as anything else—had just been cut from the UFC after being knocked out by Nick Diaz and submitted by Evan Tanner. Lawler is an exceptional fighter and extraordinary case, but the point is that Gastelum is unlikely to peak for a few more years. He has all the time in the world to develop and mature as a fighter. While he’s currently rough around the edges, Gastelum has the toughness, the power, the grit and the talent to at least give everyone he fights a hard time. There are certainly flaws evident in his game, but there are also some high level skills that should be refined and polished in the years to come. Kelvin Gastelum has the potential to be a star, and his upcoming fight against Tyron Woodley should tell us a lot about where he’s at and where he’s going.



