Fight Study 92 – Whittaker vs. Gastelum (transcript) (Patreon)

By Paul 

UFC on ESPN: Whittaker vs Gastelum took place on Saturday, April 17, 2021.  In the main event, Robert Whittaker beat Kelvin Gastelum by unanimous decision, scoring 50-45 on all three judges’ scorecards. It was a return to form for the former champion and a fight that saw him pitch a shutout. Some fans may remember that this fight was supposed to take place back at UFC 234 in 2019. Unfortunately for all of us (and especially Whittaker), he was forced to undergo emergency dual surgery on the day of the fight, due to an abdominal hernia of the intestine and a twisted and collapsed bowel. If that operation was supposed to have long-term effects on his health, it sure didn’t look like it. 

The fight played out like vintage Whittaker, who put on a striking clinic as he pieced up Kelvin Gastelum. There were times when Whittaker would string together combinations before moving out of range, only for the Gastelum to chase him and get caught with a counter. This was how he was able to beat the likes of Uriah Hall and Rafael Natal in the past, and more recently, he put on the same kind of technical striking against Darren Till and Jared Cannonier. It’s not flashy and the moves won’t go viral, but there’s no denying its effectiveness.  

Coming into the fight, fans wondered how Whittaker would do against a stocky southpaw with a strong wrestling base. This would have been a good question… before the Yoel Romero fights. Whittaker does well against southpaws, and has quite a bit of experience against them. Of his past five opponents, three of them were southpaws. His right straight to high kick in particular is always there against left-handed fighters, and he has other strikes to set them up and has contingencies in case they miss. 

What makes Whittaker’s head kick impressive is how he’s able to chain it right after his straight punch from the same side. It’s not that it hasn’t been done before, Petr Yan has a pretty good set-up from this position as well. It’s just that the higher up in weight you go, the harder it is to find fighters that can do this effectively. 

In addition to the high kicks, Whittaker has a couple of low kicks that he setups with feints. Look closely at his hips and feet, and you’ll find it difficult to determine if his kicks will go high or low. It throws opponents off, especially as the fight wears on. A common setup is for Whittaker to throw his straight into a high kick, only to switch to a straight into a low kick. Gastelum had his hands up to block the kick if it came up to his head or body but was unprepared for it to hit his legs. 

According to his post-fight interview with the ESPN crew, Whittaker credits his improved head movement and shoulder rolls from leaving his comfort zone and boxing for boxing’s sake. This has increased his abilities at close range. In particular, he also found a way to constantly block Gastelum’s strikes by wedging in his arms when he felt an attack coming. Gastelum connected mostly on Whittaker’s forearms and shoulders. This doesn’t mean that Gastelum landed nothing, even a glancing look at Whittaker’s face showed quite the damage whenever Gastelum was able to connect. 

In addition to his improved boxing, we got to see Whittaker show off some of his wrestling chops. In between strikes, Whittaker was able to clinch up and sneak in a couple of takedowns that seemed to catch Gastelum by surprise. For those that may be unaware, Whittaker has a decent freestyle wrestling career. He’s won the Australian Nation Wrestling Championships gold medal in the 97kg division back in May 2017 and did well enough to qualify for the Commonwealth Games in 2018. It was his UFC commitments that kept him from representing Australia in wrestling competitions, and who knows how well he could have done in that kind of setting? At the very least, his wrestling is good enough to take down and hold down someone of Gastelum’s caliber. 

One striking habit that Whittaker has done a good job of patching up is throwing his left hook without sticking his chin out. It’s been an issue in the past when he runs forward with his head on a platter, but he’s timed more of his strikes when he knew Gastelum wouldn’t’ be able to counter as quickly. Against Cannonier and Gastelum, it was thrown when they were already moving back with their hands down. 

Last but not least, the thing that got Whittaker in trouble the most was his bounce-bounce-bounce-attack style of striking. More often than not, it’s quick enough to give opponents trouble, but now and then, it gives them the perfect opportunity to counter when Whittaker is at his most vulnerable. Adesanya was able to drop and knock out Whittaker, but both Till and Cannonier also had success with counters whenever Whittaker got sloppy. It cost him a couple of rounds, as the scorecards for those fights with Till and Cannonier were 48-47 and 29-28, respectively. This time around, it was a clean sweep of 50-45. 

Speaking of numbers, the stats were definitely in Whittaker’s favor. Whittaker landed 150 significant strikes to Gastelum’s 62, more than double the amount. When you factor in total strikes landed, the number goes to 169 for Whittaker, while Gastelum’s only rises to 70. 

Whittaker is functionally the same fighter but has refined his weapons while shoring up his weaknesses. For him, anything short of an Israel Adesanya rematch would be an insult. Leading up to his first title fight, Whittaker cleared out the division before getting a shot at the interim middleweight title against Yoel Romero. Whittaker finds himself in a similar position, beating out all the other top contenders. And to be frank, is anyone really clamoring for a Marvin Vettori vs. Israel Adesanya rematch? Yea I didn’t think so. 

For Gastelum, the loss puts him in a tough spot. He’s 1-4 in his last five fights, and no matter how you look at it, things don’t get any easier. To his credit, Gastelum accepted this fight on short notice with roughly a month to prepare. Yes, this fight should have happened two years ago, but it’s probably to Whittaker’s benefit that it took place in 2021 instead of 2019. Gastelum has been through a barnburner with Adesanya in his interim title fight, and his subsequent fights against Darren Till and Ian Heinisch gave a lot of intel for Whittaker and his team to dissect. 

It’s not that Gastelum can’t climb his way back to the top, it’s just that there are more obstacles in the way. Looking at the middleweight rankings, the only fights available for him against competition he hasn’t already faced are Paulo Costa, Jared Cannonier, Derek Brunson, and Marvin Vettori. Since Gastelum and Vettori are training partners, the likelihood of these two competing against each other outside of a title fight (or a #1 contender’s match) is very slim. The rest of the competition, Costa, Cannonier, and Brunson are also tough match-ups, stylistically. Costa can hurt Gastelum standing, and Cannonier might have a field day with his leg kicks. Brunson might try to emulate the best parts of Whittaker’s grappling and try to make it a wrestling match. That’s not to say that Gastelum couldn’t figure out a way to get in the win column. He could catch Costa in an exchange of hooks, and his pressure-heavy, lead-with-feints style could cause Cannonier to whiff on the counters and keep him from landing kicks while moving backward. And for Brunson? If there’s one thing Gastelum has done well, it’s popping back up and blasting opponents with strikes. You don’t need to look further than Tim Kennedy and Nate Marquardt as proof. 

Gastelum might benefit the most by taking some time off and adding more tools to his arsenal. Everyone knows that his left straight and lead hooks are dangerous, but that’s also the problem. Over time, opponents and their coaches have found different ways to nullify the strikes by either clinching up the moment he gets too close or blasting Gastelum with kicks and combinations to keep him at range. Gastelum still has enough youth on his side to learn different setups or lean more into his wrestling to keep opponents on edge and their hands low. He hasn’t shown much of a low kick game, and what better time than now to incorporate it? He’s already adept at closing the distance, and if opponents manage to time it and counter, it gives Gastelum what he wanted in the first place: a stationary opponent. 

The middleweight division is in an interesting place, where the champion has mostly rematches ahead of him. Even though Adesanya held up the division by chasing a second title at light heavyweight, those plans went unaccomplished so he’s back to defending one title. It’s an odd problem because Adesanya is so much better than most of his peers, and he’d still be a heavy favorite in his rematch against Whittaker. With that said, MMA is still a wildly unpredictable game, so it’s also very possible that this time next year, we have middleweight champion, Robert Whittaker, defending his middleweight title while Adesanya has moved over to fighting Jake Paul for the undisputed Triller Club heavyweight belt. It might seem farfetched, but if I told you in April 2020 that Jake Paul is an undefeated pro boxer that will beat a former MMA world champion in a boxing match, you would have told me that there’s no way in hell that happens. When it comes to fighting, expect the unexpected.