Kelvin Gastelum’s next fight will be against Ian Heinisch at UFC Fight Night 188 on January 30th.
The booking comes after Heinisch was forced out of his fight with Brendan Allen last week after testing positive for Covid-19.
Now Heinisch finds himself in a higher-profile fight as he looks to build on a 74 second TKO victory over Gerald Meerschaert back in June.
Prior to that Heinisch had suffered back-to-back decision losses against Derek Brunson and Omari Akhmedov and overall holds a 3-2 record inside the Octagon.
As for Gastelum, the former interim title challenger’s form has slumped over the past couple of years, suffering three losses in a row.
However, it has to be kept in mind that the first of those losses was to current champion Israel Adesanya, who bested him by unanimous decision, while his next outing saw him lose out by split decision to Darren Till.
More disappointingly for Gastelum, he then failed to get back on track in his next fight, suffered a 78 second submission loss to Jack Hermansson.
Gastelum still holds onto the No.8 spot on the middleweight rankings though, while Heinisch is currently situated at No.15 heading into this fight.
Gastelum vs Heinisch joins a UFC Fight Night 188 card that will also feature a clash of welterweight veterans Carlos Condit and Matt Brown.
