Kelvin Gastelum secures unanimous decision victory over Ian Heinisch at UFC 258
The UFC stays in Las Vegas, Nevada for the second straight week tonight, February 13, 2021, as UFC 258 gets started on ESPN+ for the early preliminary card, then carries over to ESPN for the preliminary card, before the main card goes down live on pay-per-view.
Headlining the event will be a much anticipated welterweight showdown between UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman and No. 1 ranked UFC welterweight contender Gilbert Burns.
Co-headlining the event will be a women’s flyweight match up between surging No. 10 ranked Maycee Barber and No. 15 ranked Alexa Grasso. This will be Barber’s first fight coming back from her knee injury, and defeat to Roxanne Modafferi.
Barber’s goal was to become the youngest world champion in UFC history, and she still has about one more year to make that happen.
The feature bout of the evening showcases a middleweight bout between No. 9 ranked Kelvin Gastelum and No. 15 ranked Ian Heinisch, which is the fight we’ll be recapping in this piece.
This is a very telling match up; telling to see if Gastelum doesn’t quite have it anymore, and telling to see where Heinisch is at in the division. Including his title bout with Israel Adesanya, Gastelum has lost his last three straight after initially going 5-1 at 185 lbs, while Heinisch is coming off a first-round TKO victory over Gerald Meerschaert.
Continue reading to see how this middleweight contendership bout went down:
Round 1
Heinisch opens up round one with a nice inside leg kick, before shooting on, and securing a double leg takedown. Gastelum was right back to his feet, before he ended up taking Heinisch down. Heinisch was trying for a number of kimuras from his back, but was unsuccessful and they eventually made their way back to their feet.
Gastelum would secure a couple more takedowns before the round would end, with Heinisch getting back up quickly each time.
Round 2
Heinisch goes for a flying knee about one minute into round two, putting himself on his back as Gastelum turned it into a double leg. Gastelum can’t seem to keep Heinisch down though.
Heinisch makes his way to his feet, but is being dragged on as Gastelum is able to continue locking his wrists around him. Much of the round is spent with Gastelum controlling Heinisch by either dragging him around, or out-striking him.
Round 3
There was more of the same to start round three, it was still very back and forth with Gastelum getting the better of the exchanges. Heinisch goes for another flying knee, which was turned into another double leg for Gastelum.
Once again, Heinisch was back up, and they were striking again. Heinisch takes Gastelum down with ten seconds left in the round, before Gastelum gets up and takes him down to end the fight.
Official Result: Kelvin Gastelum def. Ian Heinisch via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
