Paulo Thiago injured, replaced by Brian Melancon at UFC Fight Night 27

Paulo Thiago injured and out of UFC Fight Night 27

by Jack Broadey @J3cK_b

Paulo Thiago has had to pull out of his welterweight fight with Kelvin Gastelum at Fight Night 27 due to a knee injury. This made the UFC have to rethink who was going to go up against the season 17 TUF champion. Gastelum won that series at Middleweight before dropping to welterweight and this will be his first welterweight appearance in the UFC.

At first Cage Warriors champion Cathal Pendred offered his services and tried to rally for support to get him in to the UFC to the ufc and to step in on short notice for this fight. Unfortunately for Cathal this did not get him anywhere. I am not sure how this act may have gone down with Cage Warriors management as its not the first time he has tried to get noticed by the UFC after he defeated Che Mills he publicly called to Dana White to get him in the UFC.

Later though it was announced that Brian Melancon will step up to the plate and try to make it two wins in two months for the UFC after knocking out Seth Baczynski in the first round at UFC 162. That fight was his debut in the UFC and he dominated the whole fight and could have rode out the last few seconds of round one but he decided to push the pace and in doing so knocked out Baczynski.

Kelvin Gastelum drops to Welterweight, fights Paulo Thiago at UFC on Fox Sports 1 #2

TUF 17 winner Kelvin Gastelum will take on veteran Paulo Thiago

by Jack Broadey @J3cK_b

The youngest ever winner of The Ultimate Fighter has got his first opponent since winning that title. Gastelum will face the 32 year old former Brazilian special forces fighter Paulo Thiago at UFC on Fox Sports 1 #2 on August 28th.

Gastelum out worked and out hustled the heavily favoured Uriah Hall in the finale of TUF 17 to be crowned champion. Despite winning the show at middleweight he's since teamed up with esteemed trainer Mike Dolce and made the cut to Welterweight.

Giving him his first test in his new division will be Paulo Thiago. He has been very up and down lately but bounced back with a win over Michel Prazeres last time out. He's faced a string of top contenders in his time with the UFC and will be a big test straight off the bat for Gastelum.

Gastelum however is used to big tests as he was an underdog the whole way thought TUF and he ultimately came out on top despite the odds. He will be hoping he can again overturn the odds here and get off to winning ways in his UFC career after The Ultimate Fighter.