‘Reaper’ Shares Health Update After UFC 308 Smeshing

Whittaker provided some good news and some bad news after suffering a grisly injury at the hands of Chimaev in Abu Dhabi.

Jawbreaker? Not quite.

Robert Whittaker suffered a grisly submission loss to Khamzat Chimaev in the co-main event of UFC 308 on Saturday night (watch the highlights here).

The Australian’s gameplan was clear: survive the initial “Borz” blitz and then take the fight to Khamzat in the later rounds. Unfortunately, he never managed to get past the first — Chimaev’s grappling was too strong and he took Whittaker’s back, locking up a face crank that had “The Reaper” tapping quick.

You don’t normally see taps to face cranks — the (questionable) general consensus is they’re painful but not really a finishing move. But between Chimaev’s tight squeeze and his arm positioning, he seriously f—ed up Whittaker’s mouth. Photos came out soon after the fight showing half of the former champion’s teeth caved backwards into his mouth.

“As soon as that happened, I picked up the phone and I called the truck,” UFC CEO Dana White said of the submission at the UFC 308 post-fight press conference. “They’re like, ‘Yeah, his jaw popped.’ … When you do that, it splits and the teeth get all messed up. Rob has that right now.”

So pretty much everyone from White to orthopedic sports surgeons thought Whitaker’s mandible had been broken, possible in multiple places. Fortunately, we can now update you straight from “The Reaper’s” own mangled mouth: his jaw is in one piece. His teeth? That’s another story.

“It’s a tough gig sometimes but that’s the business,” Whittaker wrote in an Instagram statement. “Big congratulations to Khamzat, he was the better man tonight and that’s all there is to it. I felt great, everything was on point and I was ready. My jaw is good, but my teeth were moved in. It’s a good excuse to fix them properly now haha.”

Some fans and media have suggested the injury should push Whittaker towards retirement, but the 33 year old sounds nowhere near done.

“I’m disappointed, but I come back better from every setback and every challenge so this is no different,” he wrote. “I want to thank my team and everyone who supported me to get here. Time to go spend time with the family for a bit. Be back soon.”