The string of canceled bouts continues for UFC welterweight Kelvin Gastelum who was hoping to make his return go 170-pounds in Sept. against Shavkat Rakhmonov in Las Vegas, but announced he won’t make the fight due to injury.
Gastelum made the announcement on his social media and YouTube including footage of the injury.
Breaking news 🚨
Unfortunately I received an injury and my fight with Shavkat Rakhmonov off/delayed
Full video on my YouTube channel. pic.twitter.com/NXxvHjU54U— #OnAmission4Gold (@KelvinGastelum) August 1, 2023
“Unfortunate news. My fight with Shavkat Rakhmonov is off. I received an elbow that resulted in an open fracture. A few bones that came out fractured.
I have to apologize to everybody that’s been, you know, everybody was excited for this fight. I apologize to everybody.
My apologies to Shavkat Rakhmonov and his team. I feel bad. I feel very horrible about this unfortunate incident.
I’ll be back. I’m still going to continue training. I can still do my strength and conditioning training, movement, I can still do a lot of my training with my trainer Noah Feinberg.
I asked to move it up to November. Hopefully they grant me this wish. That would be November 11th in Madison Square Garden.
It’s hard to be a Kelvin Gastelum fan sometimes. I know. We go through ups and downs together, but I promise we are fighting to get back on the horse. Get back on that winning streak and continue it.”
This marks the fourth cancelation in his last five bookings with his sole bout a decision victory over Chris Curtis at UFC 287.
No word as to if the UFC will grant the request to move the fight to UFC 295 as of this posting.
