When Robert Whittaker lost his middleweight title to Israel “The Last Stylebender” Adesanya, the new champ had never lost an MMA fight. Adesanya, to Whittaker, “seemed unhittable”, as he revealed on The MMA Hour. Whether this was actually true or not was another story.
“In the fight itself, in the years since I’ve fought him and the way that he beat me in the first fight, it just made him seem so much bigger than he was, so much better than he was.
Whittaker on First Adesanya Fight: “he seemed unhittable”
Like, in my own head, that is. Now, don’t caption these things, ‘Izzy’s no good.’ He’s a great fighter, phenomenal fighter. That was a tough tooth-and-nails fight. You could see how serious he was taking it. The thing is, [the first fight] made him seem unhittable — like in my own head, he seemed unhittable. Like, I couldn’t get in, I couldn’t hit him, his reach was crazy.
But in reality, it was nothing like that. I was landing my hands on him every time we exchanged [in the rematch]. You know? I wasn’t getting touched in the trades too much. Reality was very different. The mind’s a funny thing.”
Robert Whittaker eventually got his rematch, losing to Adesanya by a razor-close decision in February. “The Reaper” believed, right up until the result was announced, that he’d won the fight. However, the former champion is far from bitter.
“There’s two options I could go with, either be butt-hurt and then whinge and moan about how I didn’t get the nod that I thought I deserved, or just be happy for what I took from the fight and what I gathered, and how much I’ve gained from that fight and from the prep and from the fights leading up to there, and how different the second fight was to the first.
I left that fight realizing that there’s no ceiling. I don’t have a ceiling. I’m only getting better every fight — you can see that, I’m only getting better.
And that excites me. That excites me, because I’m young enough to still make changes, to develop, to get better, to go into fights. And eventually we’ll come across paths again. I mentioned it before — it is, I believe, inevitable. And I’ll make sure not to leave it so close.”
Robert Whittaker’s next move is unclear. He and Adesanya are clearly head and shoulders above the rest of the welterweight division, and Whittaker might have to lap the middleweight’s rotating roster of ranked contenders in order to earn another title shot.
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