When Robert Whittaker lost his UFC middleweight title to New Zealand’s Israel Adesanya in front of a record crowd at Marvel Stadium last October, it was a very bitter pill to swallow.
However, the immense disappointment that his 22-month reign of the division had ended on home soil, in what was billed as the biggest trans-Tasman combat sports event in history, paled into insignificance shortly thereafter.
The Australian MMA star was due to fight America’s Jared Cannonier at UFC 248 in March but pulled out of the event in January, saying only, via social media, that he needed to spend more time with family. It later emerged that Whittaker had, in fact, temporarily stepped away from the sport to donate bone marrow to his sick daughter Lilliana.
When Australia’s first ever UFC champion finally returned to the octagon in July he looked like a new man, defeating England’s Darren Till in Abu Dhabi via unanimous decision. He repeated the dose in October against Cannonier to become the No 1 contender in the middleweight division.
The 29-year-old attributed his impressive 2020 form to his family. “Honestly, they’re my reason why I fight,” Whittaker told Guardian Australia. “I probably wouldn’t be fighting without them. They’re everything to me.”
The father of three also credited his resurgence to the nine-month break he took after the Adesanya defeat.
“It was crucial because I probably wouldn’t be fighting if I didn’t,” he said. “I had to recharge the batteries. I had to freshen the air a bit. I had to make some changes and, you know, in doing so I’ve come back a hell of a lot happier. I’ve come back rejuvenated, re-energised. I’ve come back feeling freer, more headspace and more head room.”
However, his hopes of a title rematch with Adesanya hit a snag recently due to a colossal misunderstanding with UFC president Dana White. Whittaker says White twisted his words to give the impression he did not want to face the undefeated Adesanya.
Following Whittaker’s win against Cannonier at UFC 254, White admitted that a blockbuster sequel between Adesanya and Whittaker was “very appealing” to him.
“It’s the fight that makes sense right now,” White said at the time, even though Adesanya had already achieved a dominant second-round knockout victory against Whittaker only 12 months earlier to take the undisputed title, which he has successfully defended twice this year against Cuba’s Yoel Romero and Brazilian Paulo Costa.
But a short time after White addressed the media on October 24, Whittaker had his own post-fight press conference, at which he said he did not want to fight until March or April next year so he could spend Christmas with his family, including his newborn baby, who is due in January.
White took that to mean that Whittaker did not want to fight Adesanya at all, which set off a chain of events that could hamper Whittaker’s dream of one day taking the title back from the Nigerian-born Kiwi, most notably given the announcement Adesanya was moving up to light heavyweight to face Poland’s Jan Blachowicz in a bid to become the fifth two-weight champion in UFC history.
“Whittaker comes out and says he doesn’t want to fight him [Adesanya] – craziest shit I’ve ever seen,” White said earlier this month. But the former middleweight champion was adamant that was not what he said.
“That’s the thing, I said what I said in my press conference because I was getting the priority of my timeline out there,” Whittaker said. “And he [White] decided to take the words a little differently, he tried to twist them a little bit. I guess he wanted that fight to happen with Izzy and Jan.
“It’s hard to say because they [UFC] kind of do what they want in the end, but you and everybody else understood what I was saying and I guess it is what it is. Confusing is the word ... but you can’t do anything about it and kind of have to roll with it now.”
However, Whittaker’s hopes of fighting Adesanya showed signs of life on Sunday after Brazilian veteran Glover Teixeira’s third-round KO of countryman Thiago Santos. The performance propelled Teixeira into the light heavyweight No 1 contender spot and prompted him to demand a title shot against Blachowicz – something White later agreed the Brazilian deserved.
If Teixeira does get bumped up the queue ahead of Adesanya in that division, that could pave the way for Whittaker-Adesanya II going ahead. “That works out much better for me obviously if that does take place,” he said.
Whittaker certainly feels like he has unfinished business with Adesanya, and would even be willing to move up a division to face him.
“It’s the warrior inside of me, I don’t like having people I lost to,” he said. “It’s my right to have that next title shot and to be fighting for a title next, so whether that’s at middleweight or light heavyweight, I’m very happy to do whatever it takes.”
