Kelvin Gastelum believes Darren Till is ‘more dangerous than everybody thinks’
Kelvin Gastelum will welcome Darren Till to the middleweight division at UFC 244. It will be Gastelum’s first fight since he lost to Israel Adesanya for the interim belt, and first for Till since he was knocked out by Jorge Masvidal.
Although it is a low-reward fight for Gastelum, given the fact Till is not ranked at middleweight, he says it still is a tough fight. And, knows it is a harder fight than everybody is making it out to be.
“Everybody likes the fight but everybody keeps saying, ‘you’re gonna smash him, you’re gonna smash him.’ But like guys, Till’s more dangerous than everybody thinks,” Gastelum said to reporters backstage at UFC 242. “He’s coming off two losses. A year ago we were just saying, everybody was on him. A year ago and now every body’s like, ‘oh he’s nothing.’”
Although Kelvin Gastelum says Darren Till is a harder fight than most realize, he does expect to get his hand raised. However, people keep telling him how he will knock him out and he will win 100 percent, which is distracting.
“Yeah it’s easy reading the comments, cause I do go through the comments in the comments section and like, ‘oh Gastelum’s got it, he’s gonna knock him out,” he said. “He’s gonna do this. Gastelum 100 percent.’ And I’m like, ‘yeah, yeah they’re right. I think they’re right.’ But you have to kinda check yourself and realize, this is a dangerous guy. He’s a dangerous fighter.”
Ultimately, it is a fight and anything can happen as all it takes is one punch for someone’s night to end. But, for Kelvin Gastelum, he is confident he has what it takes to win the fight and expects to win it. He knows how important this fight is to keep his spot near the top of the middleweight rankings. In order to do so, though, he needs to beat a very dangerous Darren Till.
