AUSTIN, Texas – Sean Brady has a decently sufficient task in front of him Saturday in Texas. But if things go the way he wants, plan on a callout that likely will get some attention.
Brady (15-1 MMA, 5-1 UFC) takes on former middleweight title challenger Kelvin Gastelum (18-8 MMA, 12-8 UFC) on the main card at UFC on ESPN 52 at Moody Center in Austin, Texas. The welterweight bout will be Gastelum’s first in the division since 2016 after years at 185 pounds.
The fight is a close one at the betting window with Brady just a slight favorite at -125. He’ll be looking to rebound from the first loss of his career, a second-round TKO at the hands of Belal Muhammad in October 2022 in Abu Dhabi. He hasn’t fought since then, but Gastelum keeps in line with the level of competition he’s been facing, including wins over Michael Chiesa and Jake Matthews before he fought Muhammad.
“I’ve prepared for the absolute best Kelvin,” Brady said at Wednesday’s media day. “I’m not sure which one’s going to show up, but I’m ready for the best of him. His first battle is going to be at the scale, which is all of our first battle. But I hope he has a good weight cut so we can get in there and put on a good fight.”
Gastelum won Season 17 of “The Ultimate Fighter” at middleweight. He dropped to welterweight after that, but he missed weight twice in his first five bouts at 170 pounds – including a horrendous situation in which he came in at 180 for a fight he lost to Tyron Woodley at UFC 183. Weight hasn’t been an issue for him since then, at least on paper – but he’s been at 185.
Back at 170, will he have issues getting down to the limit?
“I don’t think it’s going to matter because I’m going to be the best Sean Brady and I’m not going to be too worried about him,” Brady said. “As long as I’m the best me, which I am, it doesn’t matter who’s in front of me – the best or the worst Kelvin, it’s going to be the same result.”
And if that proves to be true, Brady will plan to drop a big name on the microphone before he leaves the arena: Ian Machado Garry.
“I was asking for the Ian Garry fight before I was getting Kelvin, and then me and Vicente (Luque) were actually DMing,” Brady said. “Vicente’s a super nice guy, super cool. We were talking back and forth because he didn’t have a fight, I didn’t have a fight, and we were pretty much scheduled, and then they called us and some things changed. But if somehow he gets past Luque, which I don’t think he will, that’s a fight I would like.”
Garry fights Luque at UFC 296 in December. The two were teammates at Kill Cliff in South Florida until Garry recently left. The Luque fight came about soon after, and Allen, another of his former teammates has been the most outspoken about Garry’s move so far – but Brady isn’t far behind.
Luque is just ahead of Garry in the UFC’s welterweight rankings at No. 8; Garry is 10th. But the way he left his gym family wasn’t cool as far as Brady is concerned, and that would help give him some motivation if he could get a fight booked with the Irishman, who is 6-0 since he signed with the UFC.
“He’s very talented. But I’ve been with the same group of guys since I started fighting, so it rubbed me the wrong way when he called out (Luque),” Brady said. “… My teammates are like my brothers. If you’re at a gym, that’s your f*cking family, and for you to kind of do the sh*t that he’s been doing and then talking about training and how the guys know how good he is and he’s beating everybody up in the gym, and now I see Brendan Allen was calling him out and he’s starting to get some backlash. I just think that sh*t’s wack.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC on ESPN 52.
