Former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker had never lost to anyone not named Israel Adesanya. That was until recently, when Whittaker suffered a brutal knockout loss at the hands of Dricus Du Plessis.
Now, the former champ is several fights away from any hope of reclaiming his old title, and Bobby Knuckles is calling the moment a serious “wake up call.”
Robert Whittaker’s UFC “Wake Up Call”
Now Whittaker, 32, plans on remaining undefeated from this moment on. “It is what it is. I do believe that this was the kick in the ass I needed to really take me to the next level.
It helped me align a few of my goals, like goals of titles and winning and beating Izzy and now Dricus. I want to finish my career never losing again. I want to finish my career undefeated from this point.
And I do believe that this is the wake-up call that I needed to really free myself in a sense, to address a lot of the things that I’ve gotten away with that I didn’t last fight, that would have caught up with me, that did catch up with me in the last fight, that would have eventually anyway.
And it’s a lot of things that I’ve gotten away with throughout my career just because of my speed, athletic ability, instincts, eyes, all that sort of jazz.
Mate, spending 10 months, 11 months between fights, putting all that work in and then to get to center stage and not do any of it was really, really disappointing for me.
Really, really disappointing for me. Because you see, like, in that second fight with Izzy, I lost, but at least I did what I trained for. So, this fight, I did nothing and I just let down my coaches. And I know they don’t feel that way, but I do. I let down my coaches, I let down my fans and friends.
But I don’t know, this feeling, I am using this feeling as energy, I am using this feeling as a drive, because I don’t want to feel like this again, mate.
This isn’t how I want to finish my career. This isn’t the feeling I want to experience again. And the only way not to feel like this is to get back into the gym, train like a savage, and get back into the octagon sooner rather than later. Through no fault of my own, the fights have been further apart than I would like.
But I aim to change that.”
