The good news is Whittaker’s jaw isn’t broken. The bad news is this is a repeat injury he’s dealt with due to ‘vulnerable’ teeth.
Robert Whittaker is doing much better than originally reported after tapping to a nasty face crank from Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 308 (watch the highlights here).
Pictures from after the fight showed Whittaker’s mouth a mess and his bottom teeth out of line with the rest of his teeth. That led several experts to conclude his jaw had been cracked clean through in multiple positions. Fortunately that’s not the case.
“I’m all right,” Whittaker said in an interview with Red Corner from the lobby of the fighter hotel. “Like, it wasn’t the jaw. The teeth, the teeth got pushed in. I’ve always had kind of like loose teeth … and they got looser.”
“His forearms went straight on the bottom teeth, I didn’t even have a moment to turn my head or anything. It was just on. It is what it is. If I didn’t have such vulnerable teeth, maybe I would have had another second to turn my head. Or maybe not. I just caught got caught in a bad position and the rest is history.”
“The bottom teeth, they’re vulnerable,” Whittaker admitted with a laugh. “It’s my Achilles heel. I’ve had them pushed in before when I fought Dricus [Du Plessis] as well, and they’ve never really recovered. It was from an injury when I was young.”
Whittaker broke his jaw and shattered all his teeth when he was just 19 years old, leading to doctors putting a metal plate in. According to “The Reaper,” the plate left a funny looking bulge in his chin, leading him to grow a goatee to hide it — one that he continues to wears to this day.
The goatee stuck around and so did his teeth problem. Whittaker will have to protect them even more in the future now that he’s admitted they’re a weak point. Fighters are going to be targeting his jaw like it’s a glowing red orb in a video game. Face cranks aren’t exactly difficult to execute, and beating Whittaker via other methods has proven near-impossible for most middleweights.
Here’s hoping he works out some defense or the next few years of his fighting career could involve a lot of trips to the dentist.