In sports, the relationship between talent and success is correlative, not causal. This past Saturday night, we were reminded of that fact once again, courtesy of Kelvin Gastelum’s loss to Jared Cannonier.
In the UFC Vegas 34 headliner, Gastelum lost a competitive five-round unanimous decision, in a bout which figures to install Cannonier as the next contender for UFC 185-pound champion Israel Adesanya, who was vocal about his desire to take on the “Killa Gorilla” even prior to the fight. The defeat, in which the middleweights duked it out on the feet for 25 minutes with several turns in momentum, essentially came down to a single round.