The Ultimate Fighting Championship after a week off sets up shop at the UFC Apex on Saturday in Las Vegas. UFC on ESPN 29 is firmly a low-wattage affair in terms of star power, but there are some stakes on the main card which should provide entertainment throughout. With the middleweight title picture still seemingly wide open, the headliner between Jared Cannonier and Kelvin Gastelum carries importance for both men but particularly so for Cannonier as a potential fresh opponent for reigning champion Israel Adesanya. The co-feature sees top lightweight prospect Mark O. Madsen get his stiffest test yet against Clay Guida, and the opener between Alexandre Pantoja and Brandon Royval represents the best of both worlds, as it should bring guaranteed violence while establishing the winner as a flyweight title contender.
Now to the preview for the UFC on ESPN 29 “Cannonier vs. Gastelum” main card:
Middleweights
#3 MW | Jared Cannonier (13-5, 6-5 UFC) vs. #9 MW | Kelvin Gastelum (16-7, 11-7 UFC)ODDS: Cannonier (-145), Gastelum (+125)
Season 17 of “The Ultimate Fighter” was all about the rise of Uriah Hall, but it was Gastelum who wound up winning the competition. An unknown prospect entering the show, Gastelum quietly racked up wins in Hall’s shadow before taking a narrow decision win to walk home with the season’s crown. To its credit, the UFC realized it had a marketable Mexican-American talent with plenty of upside and rightfully featured Gastelum as a result. Things went well enough for a few fights—until a 2015 bout against Tyron Woodley where everything went south. Gastelum missed weight badly enough that he had to be hospitalized during his cut, yet he was still allowed to come back and weigh in 10 pounds above the limit. That started a trend of weight issues for Gastelum at 170 pounds, and so the UFC essentially forced him to move up full-time to middleweight, where he quickly became a contender in one of the oddest ways possible. Gastelum rattled off four wins—three via finish—in five fights, but they were all wins that aged poorly almost immediately. Between Tim Kennedy, Vitor Belfort, Michael Bisping and Ronaldo Souza, his run wound up being a combination of names that were obviously past their prime at the time or started their career-ending skids shortly thereafter. Add in a submission loss to Chris Weidman, and by the time Gastelum was facing Adesanya for an interim belt in 2019, it was unclear exactly how effective he could be against a middleweight in his prime. Gastelum's showing against Adesanya was promising, as the normally lackadaisical Kings MMA rep put in one of the more varied and aggressive performances of his career. However, the two-plus years since have made that performance look like more of a one-off. Gastelum put in three flat rounds in a loss to Darren Till, then got heel hooked in shockingly quick order by Jack Hermansson. Gastelum thankfully rebounded with a win over Ian Heinisch that reminded everyone just how much natural talent the California native possesses, but between a one-sided loss to Robert Whittaker in his last fight and Heinisch’s own recent poor performance, it remains as unclear as ever exactly where Gastelum stands. For the second straight fight, he steps in for Paulo Costa, and this time around, he looks for a big win against Cannonier.
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While weight issues moved Gastelum up to a full-time middleweight, Cannonier has taken the exact opposite path to land at 185 pounds. Cannonier’s UFC debut was not anything memorable. An undersized heavyweight on the questionable Alaska scene, the “Killa Gorilla” quickly got knocked out by Shawn Jordan and disappeared for over a year. Shortly after his return, Cannonier dropped down to 205 pounds and gained a bit of renown as an entertaining action fighter, but after quickly plateauing at light heavyweight, he was slated to make his debut down yet another weight class. Cannonier’s middleweight debut was booked against David Branch in late 2018 and figured to be a tough entry to his new weight class, as wrestling was never his strength at 205 pounds. That held true for the early going of their fight, but Cannonier eventually used sheer horsepower to find a finish, knocking out Branch in the second round. From there, it was a short path for Cannonier to find true contender status. He stopped Anderson Silva via leg kicks, then stifled Hermansson’s wrestling with his physicality to find another victory. Like Gastelum, Cannonier found Whittaker to be too much of an obstacle to overcome, dropping a clear decision in a fight that likely would have earned him a title shot with a win. Adesanya is still in need of fresh challengers, so with a victory here, Cannonier would be surprisingly close to achieving top contender status.
Neither man has much of a winning style by default, so this could wind up being a messy affair. Cannonier obviously has the horsepower advantage, but it is unlikely he can turn that into a knockout finish unless Gastelum is suddenly on the verge of falling off. For someone relatively devoid of defense, it has been impressive that Gastelum has gone this far into his career without being knocked out. Without those finishes, it is difficult to say that Cannonier has much going for him outside of that power advantage. He has settled into a slow-paced style built around huge single strikes that does not do much to actually win rounds. On the other side of things, it is hard to say Gastelum is much of a pace machine. He will lock in for a strong performance from time to time, but Gastelum’s ability to finish his opponents early in his days at middleweight seems to have baked in a sense that he can coast and eventually find a victory. There is a chance that Cannonier being such an obvious physical force causes Gastelum to take this seriously and fight smartly as a result. If both men show up close to their default, this feels like it will be a middling striking match where Gastelum might have a slight volume edge that gets more than offset by Cannonier hitting the much harder blows. The pick is Cannonier via decision.
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