Before Robert Whittaker gets ready to defend his Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Middleweight championship this Saturday night (Feb. 9, 2019) against Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 234 in Melbourne, Australia, take a look back at Whittaker’s second win over Yoel Romero at UFC 225 last year.
“The Reaper” already had a win over “Soldier of God,” taking him out at UFC 213 to win the interim strap. This time around, though, Whittaker was the undisputed champion and Romero was hungrier than ever to win his first-ever world title.
And he proved it come fight night, as he took it to the champ for 25 minutes, though he took his fair share of punishment to do it. In the end, Whittaker did enough to impress the cageside judges to escape with a split-decision win. The victory, however, came at the expense of a severe hand injury which sent Robert to the sidelines for the remainder of 2018.
Not one to sit idle, he took the challenge of coaching season 28 of The ultimate Fighter (TUF) opposite his upcoming opponent. Now, the two men are a little under a week away from getting it one in what should be a highly-entertaining five round fight.
To learn all you need to know about UFC 234: “Whittaker vs Gastelum” — which also features a 185-pound fight between Anderson Silva and Israel Adesanya — click here.