Kelvin Gastelum feels like he is firing on all cylinders leading into his re-booked bout against Joe Pyfer.
The two were initially supposed to compete against one another in late-March at a UFC Fight Night offering before Pyfer pulled out due to illness.
Now in the feature fight of the night on the pay-per-view main card, the two middleweight warriors finally throw down in Newark, New Jersey. At the UFC 316 fight week media day, the promotional stalwart fielded several questions from on-site media members ahead of his fight against Pyfer on Saturday night.
The TUF season 17 champion
Kelvin Gastelum said:
"Oh, absolutely. I've been prepared. I've known since, I think, October—even November—we've been prepping, looking into fighting Joe Pyfer. So it's been quite a... it's taken up a lot of my time."
"We took a little time off—just a week off, went to Disneyland to kind of reset the mind, reset the body. Then we went right back to work and slowly ramped it back up. I think we did it right. I'm peaking just right again, and we only built off the last camp, so everything is just that much better."
Kelvin Gastelum isn't thrilled with Pyfer re-booking
Kelvin Gastelum had a sour taste left in his mouth after Joe Pyfer utter some disparaging words about Mexico. This happened in the wake of Pyfer having tot pull out of his UFC on ESPN 64 fight with Gastelum which was set for Q1 2025 in Mexico City. Pyfer fell ill in Mexico and referred to the country as a 's**t hole' which Gastelum admitted left a sour taste in his mouth. At that same UFC 316 pre-fight media day Gastelum described Pyfer's comments as not right and felt the comments were a little rude.
The frustrations ran a bit deeper as Gastelum felt like he had the confluence of monetary loss and losing a tactical advantage due to his familiarity with the Mexican altitude. The former interim UFC middleweight title challenger invested time and money into a camp out there to acclimatize and it obviously put a dent in his bank account to not end up stepping into the octagon against Joe Pyfer.
