VIDEO | Kelvin Gastelum May Have Used the Daniel Cormier Towel Trick at Weigh-Ins

Today at the weigh-ins for UFC Shanghai, Kelvin Gastelum missed weight on his first attempt. Don’t worry, he was able to weigh at 186lbs for his middleweight fight with Michael Bisping tomorrow on his second trip to the scale. However, it’s ironically not the weight that everyone is focused on. We aren’t passing any judgments, but unless it’s some sort of optical illusion, Kelvin Gastelum seems to have grabbed onto the towel on his initial attempt and tugged at it. He still missed weight by a pound so it doesn’t even matter, but still, it looked like he was taking a page out of Daniel Cormier’s book.

“When I got off the scale the first time, I walked away, and they didn’t cover me. So obviously, a guy thinks that he’s losing everything that he’s worked for on the scale, and we just walk back off the scale and nobody even worried about protecting me. So I was like, you know what, I’m going to hold the towel a little bit myself to make sure that I’m covered. Now, the reality is, I didn’t even realize I was doing that until I saw pictures, honestly. I’ve got to be completely honest with you, I didn’t even realize I was doing that. I was tired. I was very discouraged and upset because of after that had just happened, so I didn’t even realize that I was doing it.” — Daniel Cormier speaking on the MMA Hour after UFC 210. 

If you don’t remember, Daniel Cormier set his hands on the towel allegedly to make sure his nude body was covered after having trouble making weight for his UFC 210 showdown with Anthony Johnson. While no punishment or conclusive evidence surfaced that Cormier did indeed cheat on the scale, the New York State Athletic Commission changed their weigh-in procedure after Daniel Cormier’s ‘towel gate’. Did Kelvin Gastelum really try to pinch the towel and pull it down to make himself seem lighter on the scale? We’ll let you decide.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 11/24/2017