Kelvin Gastelum claimed the biggest win of his career to date tonight at UFC 180 in Mexico with a first round rear-naked choke stoppage against Jake Ellenberger.
Round One:
Ellenberger with a two-piece combination, but misses. A lull then Gastelum fires off a one-two of his own and one lands solidly, but his follow-up punches don’t.
Ellenberger with a left hook. Leg kick for Gastelum. Big right hand for Ellenberger. He lands a body kick too.
Left hand for Gastelum, but a solid right counter lands from Ellenberger. Gastelum with a kick to the lead leg.
Superman punch for Gastelum and Ellenberger returns fire which prompts Gastelum to change things up and secure his first takedown of the fight.
Gastelum in full guard landing a couple of punches. He stays patient then starts to lands a few short elbow strikes. Ellenberger then works to his feet though. Nice body kick for Gastelum.
Ellenberger with the jab, but Gastelum lands harder shots on the counter. Now the TUF winner pushes into the clinch against the cage with less than a minute of the round remaining. Not too much happening with it and Ellenberger spins around and is able to drag him to the mat.
Gastelum scrambles and spins around to take Ellenberger’s back as he’s still on his knees. He immediately sinks in a rear-naked choke and drops to the mat with it and it forces a quick tap-out from Ellenberger with 4.46mins on the clock.
Great win for Gastelum and that’s his fifth in a row now in the UFC, making him the most significant TUF champion we’ve seen rise through the ranks for quite some time. As for Ellenberger, he’s now slumped to three defeats in a row.
As a side note, that’s also now four first round finishes in a row on this PPV main card!
then spins around and