Ultimate Fighting Championship cashed in on the success of Kelvin Gastelum’s successful welterweight debut when they revealed he would be squaring off with Anderson Silva at “UFC 212”. The middleweight bout could propel Gastelum into the mix of elite talent and ultimately championship status if he can get the win over “The Spider”.
Gastelum may have a bit of an advantage over Silva going into fight night, as Silva’s former trainer Rafael Cordeiro at Chute Boxe is now training Gastelum at Kings MMA. Still, Cordeiro doesn’t believe this will be a conflict of interest and thinks that cooler heads will prevail before it even gets out of hand. He told AG Fight [via. Bloody Elbow]:
“I got some history with Anderson Silva back from 2001 and 2002 when I trained him at Chute Boxe. Now, everything has changed. Friendship apart, that’s a competition and we’re all here to win. We all hope to win and I hope Kelvin Gastelum walks out victorious.”
“Anderson has been at Kings MMA a few times, I have a good relationship with him, we talk over the phone and there’s no beef between us. A fight is a fight, that only shows how professional we are. Anderson has been in the opposing corner when Werdum faced Big Nog and that didn’t affect us.”
“In the end, however, when Werdum tried to hug him, there was no hug, but that’s behind us. I was Anderson’s coach in the past, when I was his coach. I’m not anymore and I don’t feel disrespectful at all about it”.
