{"id":44147,"date":"2025-08-05T01:19:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T01:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/44147\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T01:19:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T01:19:08","slug":"caio-borralho-robert-whittaker-very-close-to-retiring-doesnt-want-to-be-there-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/44147\/","title":{"rendered":"Caio Borralho: Robert Whittaker very close to retiring, ‘doesn’t want to be there anymore’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Caio Borralho thinks the end is near for Robert Whittaker.<\/p>\n

Whittaker (26-9 MMA, 17-7 UFC) lost a split decision<\/a> to Reinier de Ridder (21-2 MMA, 4-0 UFC) last week in the UFC on ABC 9 main event at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. The former UFC champion lost two straight for the first time at middleweight, and is no longer ranked in the top five.<\/p>\n

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Although Whittaker put on a good performance \u2013 including a Round 3 knockdown of De Ridder, Borralho doesn’t see too much fight left in him.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think so,” Borralho told The Schmo<\/a> on Whittaker returning to the top five. “Robert Whittaker is a f*cking legend. I’m a big fan of him and all that he’s done in the sport. (He’s) one of the GOATs in the middleweight (division). But right now, I feel that it seems like he doesn’t want to be there anymore.<\/p>\n

“His face says that. His body expressions say that. I don’t think he wants to go there and do, like, a five-round war again. I don’t believe that. With all due respect to him, I’m a big fan \u2013\u00a0but right now, it’s just not his moment anymore. I think he’s very close to retire or something like that.”<\/p>\n

Borralho (17-1 MMA, 7-0 UFC) will look to emerge as No. 1 contender when he takes on Nassourdine Imavov (16-4 MMA, 8-2 UFC) in the UFC Fight Night main event Sept. 6 in Paris, France.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Caio Borralho: Robert Whittaker ‘doesn’t want to be there anymore’<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Caio Borralho thinks the end is near for Robert Whittaker. Whittaker (26-9 MMA, 17-7 UFC) lost a split…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,38615,38614,786,785,17829,17831,85,787],"class_list":{"0":"post-44147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-borralho","11":"tag-caio-borralho","12":"tag-fighting","13":"tag-mma","14":"tag-reinier-de-ridder","15":"tag-robert-whittaker","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44147","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=44147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}