Kelvin Gastelum calls out Robert Whittaker

Kelvin Gastelum has lost his last two fights, and is ready for the opportunity to get back on track. He’s hoping to do so with a fight that eluded him previously: a matchup with former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker.

Gastelum and Whittaker were scheduled to fight for the middleweight title in Australia in early 2019, when Whittaker still held the belt. Unfortunately, after a gruelling training for both parties, the fight was derailed at the last minute when Whittaker withdrew from the fight with a severe abdominal hernia that required emergency surgery.

Today, when Gastelum is riding two losses, and Whittaker recently surrendered the title to Israel Adesanya by way of second-round knockout, Gastelum seems to think the time has come for another attempt at this matchup.

He called out the former champion on Twitter on Thursday, and did not pull any punches.

https://twitter.com/KelvinGastelum/status/1202665954292961280

“Can an Aussie pick his chin up off the floor and bring it to London?” Gastelum wrote to conclude his Tweet.

Since his nixed fight with Whittaker, which was preceded by back-to-back wins over Michael Bisping and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, Kelvin Gastelum has lost two in a row. The first of those losses occurred in April, when he lost a decision in an interim middleweight title fight with Israel Adesanya, who now holds the undisputed middleweight belt. His next loss occurred in early November, when he gave up a decision to Darren Till in the co-main event of UFC 244.

Whittaker, meanwhile, has fought just once since his foiled fight with Gastelum. In that fight, he surrendered the middleweight title to Adesanya, as aforementioned.

At present, the UFC’s March return to London — the card Gastelum is eyeing — doesn’t have a main event. While a fight between Gastelum and Whittaker makes sense from rankings standpoint, it might not be the best fit for London as neither of the two men is British.

Does this matchup interest you?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.com on 12/5/2019.