Midnight Mania! Whittaker Denies Ducking Khamzat

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Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Former Middleweight champion Robert Whittaker can certainly be considered an interested party in UFC 287’s main event this weekend (Sat. April 8, 2023) between Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira.

Twice previously, Whittaker has battled with “Stylebender.” In the first fight, Adesanya dethroned Whittaker in a master class performance, stopping him via second-round knockout. The rematch a couple years later was far more competitive, but the Australian still found himself on the wrong side of a very tight decision loss. Since then, Whittaker bounced back with a stellar performance at UFC Paris, beating the brakes off Marvin Vettori to get right back in the title mix.

In fact, he was briefly considered for Pereira’s first title defense. It makes sense were Adesanya unavailable, seeing as how Whittaker has no previous fight history with the champion, and he’s long-established as an elite Middleweight. Since the rematch did end up happening, however, Khamzat Chimaev was also mentioned as a potential foe for Whittaker’s next move.

More recently, Chimaev has claimed that Whittaker turned down an opportunity to fight him. Speaking on MMArcade Podcast, Whittaker denied ever getting offered the fight and explained that his next bout will likely be dictated by the outcome of Saturday’s main event,

“Someone said [Khamzat] Chimaev offered me a fight and I turned it down.” Robert Whittaker began (via Josh Evanoff). “I was never offered a fight with Chimaev, and that’s that. That’s that, that’s it. I haven’t been offered any fight.”

He continued, “I’ve just been waiting, and like I’m sure I could’ve asked for someone in the meanwhile. Like, I’ve been talking to the UFC and I’ve been asking what’s up. The communication has just been, ‘Let’s wait and see what happens with this title shot’. I haven’t received any sort of written contract asking if I want to fight Chimaev on X, Y, Z, that’s not something that has been presented to me.”

If Pereira remains the Middleweight champion come Sunday morning, Whittaker appears to be first-in-line for a crack at the belt. Should Adesanya regain his crown, an instant trilogy could be in order, making that Chimaev vs. Whittaker fight a far more likely booking.

Insomnia

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Slips, rips, and KO clips

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A very oddly angled triangle combined with a bit of Suloev Stretch for good measure:

Left hook to the body followed by another upstairs — classic boxing in Karate Combat!

Random Land

The life expectancy variance on this map is pretty wild.

Midnight Music: Folk rock, 1982

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.