Kelvin Gastelum: ‘Beating Woodley Is First Step Towards The Title’- Exclusive

UFC 183 is Saturday and the excitement is at an all time high for the return of Anderson Silva and Nick Diaz, but before they square off in the main event two of the UFC’s top welterweights will fight for what could be a shot at the title. Tyron Woodley and Kelvin Gastelum are tapped to fight in Las Vegas, but this past Sunday Gastelum was a guest on BJPENN.COM Radio, where he talked about the fight and what it means as far as his future plans.

TUF 17 winner said he is ready for the fight and thinks it will play out like a lot of people expect it to, as far as being a great fight to watch, “It’s going to be a battle, it’s going to be a battle, as everybody can assume. He’s a tough opponent and as the days go by it gets realer and realer.”

Gastelum, who has gone into every fight as the underdog, explains how that fuels him to prove the doubters wrong, “Every fight gets bigger and bigger and since I won The Ultimate Fighter I kind of had a little chip on my shoulder. Everybody was saying the Uriah Hall win was a fluke. Uriah was too nice and stuff like that. I got out of that fight with a chip on my shoulder. I won that fight fair and square with my hard work and I’m going to prove it to everybody else by winning every single fight, and so far I have.”

There has been a lot of talk about the winner of this fight possibly getting the next title shot, but Gastelum isn’t concerned with all the chatter and plans on earning his shot at gold by proving he’s the best, “I need to prove it to myself first that I’m worthy of a title shot. I’m not one of those guys that wants to jump ahead of everybody else. I want to prove it to everybody else and I want to prove it to myself first. Beating Tyron, that’s going to be the first step towards that title run.”

With every fight the welterweight has gone up in the ranks, making every fight bigger and bigger, but no matter what’s at stake he plans on doing what he always does, “The approach to every fight is the same. The mentality going into every fight is the same. I’ve had all the cards stacked against me in every fight and I thrive under that pressure.” He added, “I have one goal in mind and that is to beat Tyron Woodley and be one of the best in the world.”

Make sure you check our the full interview HERE!

By: Ryan C. Miller | Twitter