Robert Whittaker is feeling extremely confident heading into his match-up against Yoel Romero.
Earlier this year it was expected that UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping would be defending his title against the returning Georges St-Pierre, however, no date or venue for the event was ever given and the bout was shortly called off. Now that “The Count” is nursing an injury, UFC President Dana White has implemented an interim 185-pound strap that will be contended for by two of the division’s finest – No. 1-ranked Yoel Romero and No. 3-ranked Robert Whittaker.
The pair are set to co-headline the UFC 213 pay-per-view (PPV) event next week (Sat. July 8, 2017), which will feature a women’s bantamweight championship main event between champ Amanda Nunes and challenger Valentina Shevchenko.
Whittaker comes off of a knockout victory over longtime top-ranked middleweight Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza. Given that Romero took Souza to a split decision win (which many felt should’ve gone the other way) Whittaker should be pretty confident as he approaches fight night against Romero, right? Wrong. Mixed martial arts (MMA) math can never be counted on in a sport like this, and Whittaker knows exactly that (quotes via MMA Mania):
“This isn’t video games,” Whittaker said. “It means nothing to me. Every fight and every matchup is different. And how people match up will effect the results drastically. You can have one fighter, may beat another fighter who beat another fighter. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“But I’m going to control this fight. I think it’s going to be a smart fight, and whoever pushes their game plan on one another is going to win this fight,” he said. “You’ve got to dictate the pace. I have a set of skills that can do that, so we’ll see.”
When it’s all said and done, Whittaker feels he’s going to put ‘too much hurt’ on his Cuban counterpart, and walk away from the T-Mobile Arena with UFC gold strapped around his waist:
“I just see me putting too much hurt on him,” Whittaker said. “His will might be there, but the human body can only take so much damage. I’ve just got to get my hands on him, and I will do that,” he concluded.
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