“My drive is to just beat Izzy” – Robert Whittaker says he doesn’t care about the belt as much as his revenge against Israel Adesanya at UFC 271
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Robert Whittaker on beating Israel Adesanya at UFC 271
Robert Whittaker wants to beat Israel Adesanya more than he wants to get his hands on the middleweight belt.
Both, Israel Adesanya and Robert Whittaker will be taking the center stage in the main event of UFC 271. The fight is set to take place at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. While Adesanya is more concerned about defending his title and cementing his legacy as one of the GOATs of the UFC middleweight division, Whittaker is more focused on getting his revenge against “The Last Stylebender”.
Robert and Izzy met each other for the first time at UFC 243 in a title unifier bout. Despite not being a huge favorite to win the fight, Adesanya and his mind games got the better of Whittaker which resulted in Izzy getting a TKO win in the second round. Since then Whittaker has only one thing on his mind and it is to avenge his loss.
“I don’t put a lot of stock in,” Robert Whittaker on the UFC middleweight belt
In a recent interview promoting his title rematch against Izzy, Whittaker sat down with Full Mount. The fighter when asked about whether he cares about the belt said this: “I value it in the sense of, having the belt is better than not having the belt.” Though Whittaker has a title at stake, his main priority lies in beating his arch-nemesis.
“It is not something I put a lot of stock in. I am not driving to want. My drive is to beat Izzy. That’s the drive. It’s not to win this fight for the belt. It is not to win this fight to be the champ. It’s just to beat Izzy. That’s my goal, that’s my drive,” said Robert talking to Erik Uebelacker of Full Mount MMA Interviews.
Since his loss to Adesanya at UFC 243, the former champion has taken the unusual route of working his way up to a title rematch instead of an immediate one. Whittaker is 3-0 since 2019 and has beaten the likes of Darren Till, Jared Cannonier, and Kelvin Gastelum. Do you think Whittaker can beat Adesanya in the rematch?
Also read “His ego won’t let him”- Israel Adesanya isn’t buying into Robert’s “changed” mentality
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Prateek Athanur
(2944 Articles Published)