Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) 185-pound champion Robert Whittaker is 10-1 as a middleweight with four knockouts, having defeated the likes of top contenders Yoel Romero and Jacare Souza, just to name a few.
And he’s still nowhere near a championship title fight.
That’s according to City Kickboxing head coach Eugene Bareman, who wants reigning middleweight kingpin Israel Adesanya to move up in weight for a champion vs. champion super fight against current 205-pound titleholder Jan Blachowicz.
“The crosshairs are on Jan,” Bareman told Submission Radio. “Robert Whittaker may as well be outside of the scope. He’s not even anywhere near the crosshairs. So, like, yeah, we’re not even mentioning that name. All our focus is on the Blachowicz fight. At the moment, the battle that’s going on is not between the two fighters, it’s between the management teams of both fighters and the UFC. But that’s the battle going on now.”
Adesanya (20-0) defeated Whittaker by way of second-round knockout in the UFC 243 pay-per-view (PPV) main event back in late 2019, then moved on to score back-to-back title defenses against Romero (UFC 248) and Paulo Costa (UFC 253).
Blachowicz (27-8) has yet to make a single title defense at light heavyweight but it seems like divisions don’t really matter anymore, which is why “The Last Stylebender” is also looking to land a Jon Jones fight at some point in late 2021.
Where he could enter the contest as champ-champ.
“Jan wants March,” Bareman continued. “So, he’s posturing for that in March. So, when you come out and say things like that publicly, on public record, social media and stuff, that’s all part of a strategy to put you in a position to take the fight at a certain date that you want it. But ultimately, there’s two champions involved, and so they both have just an equal right to what day that they want to fight, it has to work for both of them. And ultimately, both these guys work for a company, and that company decides when you fight.”
Hopefully they also decide to book Whittaker against this guy.