{"id":374796,"date":"2025-12-27T18:59:58","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T18:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/374796\/"},"modified":"2025-12-27T18:59:58","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T18:59:58","slug":"robert-whittaker-shares-timeline-for-return-mulls-weightclass-switch-for-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/374796\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Whittaker shares timeline for return, mulls weightclass switch for 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Robert Whittaker is planning his return to the UFC octagon, but it won\u2019t be for a while.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Whittaker is coming off a rough two fight losing streak. He had his front teeth snapped off his jaw by Khamzat Chimaev in October 2024 and then lost a split decision to Reinier de Ridder in July 2025. Those defeats have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/2025\/7\/27\/24475122\/ufc-abu-dhabi-the-morning-after-robert-whittakers-decade-elite-middleweight-comes-to-a-close-abc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">dropped him out<\/a> of middleweight title contention, so what is the 35 year old former champ going to do now?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">According to \u201cThe Reaper,\u201d he may move up another weight class.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI want to get back in there next year,\u201d Whittaker said on his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dtQtqfGjOzM\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MMA Arcade podcast.<\/a> \u201cI don\u2019t know how I want to do it. I\u2019ll be working on some new skill sets and working on some new things. Wanna get in there probably by mid-next year. I don\u2019t know if it will be at middleweight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Whittaker confirmed he was considering light heavyweight, which would be two divisions up from welterweight, where he competed from 2009-2014.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cPotentially,\u201d he added. \u201cI\u2019m a bigger guy now. But everyone\u2019s gonna say, \u2018Oh, he\u2019s too short, too short. They\u2019re taller than me here! What\u2019s the difference? You know what I mean? Everyone\u2019s got height on me anyway. Everyone\u2019s got reach on me anyway. What\u2019s the difference?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI think I might as well just try something else, you know? I don\u2019t know, thinking about playing with the idea, but that is Next Year Rob\u2019s problem.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">We\u2019d file this idea under trying to fix a problem that isn\u2019t a problem. Loses to Chimaev and de Ridder don\u2019t justify a move, considering Chimaev is champion and de Ridder is likely to bust into the top 5 in 2026. This isn\u2019t to say Whittaker couldn\u2019t move up to light heavyweight and do some good work. But he\u2019d have just as much trouble with the top 5 at 205 as he would 185.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">At least he\u2019d be allowed to eat, and that must make the idea pretty tempting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Whittaker is planning his return to the UFC octagon, but it won\u2019t be for a while. Whittaker&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,1396],"class_list":["post-374796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374796","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=374796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}