{"id":25825,"date":"2025-07-27T21:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T21:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/25825\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T21:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T21:04:09","slug":"mick-maynards-shoes-whats-next-for-robert-whittaker-after-ufc-on-abc-9-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/25825\/","title":{"rendered":"Mick Maynard&#8217;s Shoes: What&#8217;s next for Robert Whittaker after UFC on ABC 9 loss?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Robert Whittaker suffered a critical loss at an important time in his career Saturday against Reinier de Ridder in the <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/events\/ufc-fight-night-abu-dhabi-july-26-2025\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:UFC on ABC 9;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">UFC on ABC 9<\/a> headliner.<\/p>\n<p>Just as he voiced his intention to make a final title push before retirement, the former middleweight champion Whittaker (26-9 MMA, 17-7 UFC) <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/ufc-abc-9-results-reinier-222226750.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:dropped a split decision;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">dropped a split decision<\/a> to de Ridder (20-2 MMA, 4-0 UFC) at Etihad Arena on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, and he&#8217;s now dropped consecutive fights for the first time in more than a decade.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Whittaker was hoping to rebound strong from a <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ufc\/2025\/01\/02\/ufc-khamzat-chimaev-robert-whittaker-submission-of-the-year-2024\/77414157007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:2024 Submission of the Year;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">2024 Submission of the Year<\/a> loss to Khamzat Chimaev in October, but instead he&#8217;s in uncharted territory after falling on the wrong side of the scorecards against an opponent who was ranked No. 12.<\/p>\n<p>What does the future hold for Whittaker? Watch the video above for thoughts and analysis after the UFC on ABC 9 main event.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ufc\/2025\/07\/27\/ufc-abu-dhabi-matchmaker-robert-whittaker-next-fight-loss-video\/85392089007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:UFC Abu Dhabi matchmaker: Who&#039;s next for Robert Whittaker after loss?;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">UFC Abu Dhabi matchmaker: Who&#8217;s next for Robert Whittaker after loss?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Whittaker suffered a critical loss at an important time in his career Saturday against Reinier de Ridder&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[944,64,63,17830,786,785,17829,17831,85,787,25164],"class_list":{"0":"post-25825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-abu-dhabi","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-de-ridder","12":"tag-fighting","13":"tag-mma","14":"tag-reinier-de-ridder","15":"tag-robert-whittaker","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-ufc","18":"tag-yas-island"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}