{"id":27524,"date":"2025-07-28T13:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T13:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/27524\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T13:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T13:10:08","slug":"monday-morning-hangover-whats-next-for-robert-whittaker-after-tough-loss-at-ufc-abu-dhabi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/27524\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Morning Hangover: What\u2019s next for Robert Whittaker after tough loss at UFC Abu Dhabi?"},"content":{"rendered":"

UFC Abu Dhabi<\/a> blew the roof off Etihad Arena this past weekend (Sat., July 26, 2025) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, leaving several fighters feeling the post-fight blues<\/a>. Among them was Amanda Ribas, who suffered her third straight defeat and suffered some major facial damage<\/a> courtesy of Tabatha Ricci\u2019s violent elbow strikes (see it here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

And Said Nurmagomedov, who suffered his second straight loss after coming up short against Bryce Mitchell, while Mohammad Yahya suffered a one-sided beatdown<\/a> at the hands of Steven Nguyen. But which fighter is suffering from the worst post-fight hangover, now a few days removed from the show?<\/p>\n

Robert Whittaker.<\/p>\n

Coming into his headlining bout against Reinier de Ridder, Whittaker was out to erase the memory of the crushing defeat (literally<\/a>) at the hands of Khamzat Chimaev nine months prior, which resulted in several broken teeth. Despite the setback at the hands of \u201cBorz,\u201d Whittaker wanted to prove that he still has plenty to offer the fight game.<\/p>\n

And for the majority of the fight he did just that, taking it to \u201cRDR\u201d while absorbing some of his foe\u2019s best shots. It was a 25-minute, back-and-forth war that saw Whittaker almost finish the fight with a solid right hand in the later rounds. Credit to de Ridder, though, who bounced back and did enough to convince the judges to give him the razor-thin split-decision win.<\/a><\/p>\n

For Whittaker. it\u2019s a tough blow for his aspirations to get back to a title fight now that he has lost two in a row, bringing him to 2-3 in his last five fights. The defeat is also crucial for \u201cBobby Knuckles” many believe that his time as an elite fighter may be dwindling. <\/p>\n

While several greats have faced a downward spiral at some point in their career, it\u2019s easy to say that Whittaker\u2019s best days are behind him bases on his last two outings. And while he might have lost a step or three, he still looked good on Saturday for the most part, and the decision could have easily gone his way. He was not completely outclassed in this fight, so let\u2019s not get it twisted, \u201cBobby Knuckles\u201d can still hang with the best of them.<\/p>\n

Losses to Khamzat Chimaev \u2014 the No. 1 contender<\/a> \u2014 and Dricus du Plessis \u2014 the current Middleweight champion<\/a> \u2014 are nothing to hang his head low over, but a defeat to de Ridder has some believing his time has passed him by. <\/p>\n

Still, Whittaker is just 34 years of age and I feel he has plenty to offer, and will pose as a tough challenge to anyone standing in front of him. As far as who could be his next opponent to prove just that, a showdown against Sean Strickland is long overdue. <\/p>\n

Strickland is currently ranked No. 2 in the weight class, but he is coming off a tough championship defeat at the hands of du Plessis. \u201cTarzan\u201d is currently suspended<\/a> for his involvement in a post-fight brawl<\/a> on a regional show, but by the time he\u2019s served his sentence Whittaker could be ready to return.<\/p>\n

For complete UFC Abu Dhabi results, coverage and highlights click HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC Abu Dhabi blew the roof off Etihad Arena this past weekend (Sat., July 26, 2025) in Abu…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[1930,9490,1929,64,63,1646,1931,786,580,585,13054,1347,6010,785,1645,13052,13053,1919,24297,1628,7991,85,26647,787,1396,6656,316,19454],"class_list":["post-27524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-abu","tag-after","tag-at","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-com","tag-dhabi","tag-fighting","tag-for","tag-front-page","tag-hangover","tag-latest-news","tag-loss","tag-mma","tag-mmamania","tag-monday","tag-morning","tag-next","tag-robert","tag-s","tag-sb-nation-commerce","tag-sports","tag-tough","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news","tag-ufc-results","tag-what","tag-whittaker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27524","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=27524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}