With the UFC’s top middleweights the likes of Michael Bisping, Luke Rockhold, and more officially out of the title hunt, Robert Whittaker’s next likely opponent is down to just a few good men.
Kelvin Gastelum is at the top of that list, but former champion Chris Weidman is injecting himself into the picture, and he’s using his recent win over Gastelum as a case for argument for his own title shot.
In a new interview with the MMA Hour, he broke it down:
“Obviously for me that would be the best case is to fight for the title. Fighting Whittaker, that’s a guy I match up well with and that’s a guy I feel I can go out there and finish.”
“I feel I am the most decorated guy in the division, I’ve had the most title defenses. I had a rough patch, I went undefeated my whole career, I lost one, happened to lose three in a row. My mind, I felt like it wasn’t in the fight spot. I came back, got myself where I needed to be, got my mind back and I went out there and beat one of the top contenders, Kelvin Gastelum. I feel like I dominated the fight and went out there and finished him. I feel like you’re only as good as your last fight and I finished the other guy that we’re talking about in my last fight. I think I definitely deserve shot at the title. It will be a good fight.”
“If you’re going to start doing that, you are picking what is the worst look for me. If you’re going to go back, look at my whole career. If you’re going to start with my first losses, it’s going to look bad. But if you look at my whole career, I’ve fought only the best guys in the world since I’ve been in UFC and I’ve done pretty damn good, have the most title defenses and I went through a little rough patch and I climbed my way out of it, I didn’t have any rough patches before that,” he said.
“There’s a lot of losses in Gastelum’s career that don’t look so good. We have one common, we fought each other so that answers the question. I went out there and I finished him, he had the same opportunity and he went out there and lost to me, so…”
