Will he or won’t he?
That’s what Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) interim middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya, wants to know about reigning division kingpin, Robert Whittaker, in regards to their upcoming UFC 243 pay-per-view (PPV) main event on Oct. 5 in Melbourne.
Will “The Reaper” actually make it to fight night?
“I’m going to put a wager out there and see if he makes it to the fight,” Adesanya told Submission Radio. “Cause for me, I’m keeping that same energy with the way I train. If he is… is he gonna make it to the fight? So, I’m prepared for him, but I don’t know if he’s gonna make it to the fight. That’s just history.”
A history that helped “The Last Stylebender” capture the substitute strap.
Whittaker (20-4) has competed just once over the last two years, a split-decision win from his five-round war opposite 185-pound slugger, Yoel Romero. The Aussie was expected to defend his title at UFC 234, but withdrew at the last minute for emergency surgery.
And we can’t overlook his previous bout with Staph infection.
“They should put a wager on ‘will Robert make it to this fight? Will he pull out of this fight?’ and put odds on that based on all his other fights,” Adesanya continued. “That should be a new wager that gets added to the odds.”
We’ll find out in a little over three months.