“My ego probably was a big thing”- Robert Whittaker pinpoints the reason for long the mental warfare against Israel Adesanya at UFC 243
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Robert Whittaker will challenge the current middleweight champion Israel Adesanya for the title at UFC 271. This would be the second time both the fighters will meet inside the octagon as the first was at UFC 243. In that fight, Whittaker lost to Izzy via KO which cost him the middleweight championship belt.
Ahead of his rematch against a former opponent, Whitaker sat down with MMA Junkie on their YouTube channel to talk about his upcoming fight. During the interview, Whitaker was asked about what happened the first time when he fought Izzy at UFC 243 and how it affected him.
While answering the questions the former champ revealed that he got very emotional over the build-up to the fight. Whittaker explained that many opponents have tried to get into his head but with Izzy it was different and every small thing was putting an impact on his headspace.
Whittaker also described that he was getting affected by unnecessary things like the whole Australia vs New Zealand and all that compounded disturbing his focus. “My ego probably was a big thing and it was a big part my headspace wasn’t where it should have been,” Whittaker said about his ego getting in the way of training.
Along with that, Whittaker also explained that the fight with Izzy in Australia was massive and that had a lot to do with his mindset before the fight. The pressure, hype, media, attention, the crowd was a lot to take for the fighter at UFC 243. “It was a magnifying factor, so it just made those little things playing with my mind just worse,” said Whittaker.
Robert Whittaker is willing to put everything on the line to retain his title
It’s been two years since the Australian lost his middleweight title to Izzy and now he has finally got his chance to recover it. Since that loss of Adesanya, Whittaker has fought three fights and has won all of them and shown how much he has evolved since then. On the other hand, Adesanya after becoming the Champion has successfully defended his title thrice.
For Whittaker to win against, Adesanya who is considered as one of the best strikers in UFC will have to step up his game and try different things against the champ. One of those things will be mixing the standing game with some wrestling.
Whittaker can learn a lot from the Adesanya vs Blachowicz fight where Adesanya was struggling against the wrestling and ground and pound of Blachowicz.
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Soumya Ranjan
(2167 Articles Published)