Kelvin Gastelum Out of Shavkat Rakhmonov Clash Booked for UFC Fight Night 227

Sept. 16’s
UFC Fight Night 227 Las Vegas card lost one of its protagonists
after Kelvin
Gastelum suffered an injury in training.

Gastelum (18-8, 1NC; 12-8, 1NC UFC) took to his social media
accounts to announce his assignment was off. According to the
fighter, he suffered fractures following an elbow strike in
training. The Fight Ready representative was scheduled to compete
at 170 for the first time since moving up to middleweight in 2016.
Gastelum picked up a victory in his latest foray, a unanimous
decision win over Chris
Curtis at UFC 287, bouncing back after back-to-back defeats at
the hands of Robert
Whittaker and Jared
Cannonier.

“Unfortunate news, my fight with Shavkat
Rakhmonov is off. I received an elbow that resulted in an open
fracture and a few bones came out fractured. I have to apologize to
everybody who was excited about this fight. I apologize to
everybody. I apologize to Rakhmonov and his team. I feel bad. I
feel very horrible about this unfortunate incident. I’ll be back.
I’m still going to continue training. I can still do my strength
and conditioning training, movement, I can still do a lot of my
training… I asked to move it up to November. Hopefully they will
grant me this wish. That will be Nov. 11 in Madison Square Garden.
It’s hard to be a Kelvin Gastelum fan sometimes, I know. We go
through ups and downs together, but I promise we’re fighting to get
back on the horse and get back on that winning streak and continue
it.”

It didn’t take long for Rakhmonov (17-0, 5-0 UFC) to reply to his
fellow
Ultimate Fighting Championship colleague. “Nomad” asked the
fight to be rescheduled on the UFC 294 card in Abu Dhabi, implying
Gastelum was dodging him. The former M-1 Global champion is coming
off a submission victory over Geoff Neal at
UFC 285.

“Pinata, I agreed to fight you on your territory on Mexican
Independence Day in arena full of your supporters and it’s not my
problem you can’t do it now. It’s your turn to accept to fight me
on my territory in Abu Dhabi at UFC 294! Or did you realize it was
bad idea just now?”

UFC Fight Night 227 is set to go down at T-Mobile Arena in Las
Vegas. The headliner will pit Alexa
Grasso against former divisional queen Valentina
Shevchenko for a rematch with the women’s flyweight
championship on the line.