Kelvin Gastelum has a huge upper-hand heading into his fight with Anderson Silva at UFC 212.
Gastelum has been training with King’s MMA head-coach Rafael Cordeiro as of late, and he’s looked phenomenal in his last few bouts under the Brazilian’s tutelage. His most recent knockout of Vitor Belfort last weekend set up Gastelum to call out former middleweight king Anderson Silva to share the Octagon with him next, and ‘The Spider’ gladly accepted.
Silva has a history with Gastelum’s head-coach, Cordeiro, who trained the former 185-pound champ in Chute Boxe back in the early 2000’s. Cordeiro recently discussed his history with Silva with AG Fight (translation via Bloody Elbow), and admits his allegiance lies with Gastelum despite his friendship with ‘The Spider’:
“I got some history with Anderson Silva back from 2001 and 2002 when I trained him at Chute Boxe,” Cordeiro said. “Now, everything has changed. Friendship apart, that’s a competition and we’re all here to win. We all hope to win and I hope Kelvin Gastelum walks out victorious.”
Cordeiro stated that he and Silva remain friends today despite having been on the opposite corners of the Octagon lately, and says there is no beef between him and his former protégée:
“Anderson has been at Kings MMA a few times, I have a good relationship with him, we talk over the phone and there’s no beef between us. A fight is a fight, that only shows how professional we are. Anderson has been in the opposing corner when Werdum faced Big Nog and that didn’t affect us.
“In the end, however, when Werdum tried to hug him, there was no hug, but that’s behind us. I was Anderson’s coach in the past, when I was his coach. I’m not anymore and I don’t feel disrespectful at all about it”.
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