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Robert Whittaker will make his long-awaited return to action this Saturday (July 25, 2020) when he faces Darren Till in the main event of UFC on ESPN 14 from inside Flash Forum on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
It will be his first fight in nine months since losing his Middleweight title to Israel Adesanya at UFC 243 last October. “The Reaper” was set to make his comeback at UFC 248 this past March against Jared Cannonier, but ultimately pulled out of the bout for undisclosed reasons. But after admitting that his decision had to do with his wish to take a personal break to care of personal issues such as mental stress and burnout, Whittaker is back and ready to prove he isn’t going anywhere.
“The Robert Whittaker (fans are) going to get is a happier one. A much happier one. I’m doing everything I’m doing for me and my family. One, because I enjoy it. And two, ’cause it’s how I provide for my family. (I’m) very ready to go,” Whittaker said in a chat with Bleacher Report.
Instead of trying to fight through the mental health issues, Whittaker opted to distance himself from the fight game to recharge. It was a move “Bobby Knuckles” says will benefit him greatly.
“I have trials and tribulations. I kind of thought that I’d get through this with nothing: don’t worry about it, ignore it, push it to the side, get through it. Then you do that for six months, a year, a year-and-a-half. It just eats at you. It’s like the ocean. It just weathers the storm,” Whittaker said.
“I’d been mulling (a break), but again, the whole time it was like, ‘it’s not this, it’s not me, it’ll go away.’ So after the Adesanya fight, and I was no longer the champ, there were no longer the same stresses, the same pressures to do things, so I was like, ‘I’m going to take some time out.’ It was uncertain. Uncertain is a good word. It was very uncertain. I didn’t know where I was going to go or what I was going to do.”
His loss to Adesanya was his first in five years, so it’s not a flavor Whittaker is used to tasting. With a victory over Till on “Fight Island” he could very well make a strong case for a shot at reclaiming his strap. Or, at the very least, earn himself a title eliminator fight against this man.
For the complete UFC on ESPN 14 line up click here.