losing by brutal first-round neck crank<\/a>, and has lost to the No. 1-ranked contender, Dricus du Plessis, too.<\/p>\nAdvertisement<\/p>\n
A short run at light heavyweight, perhaps with just one or two wins, could yield a title shot in the new division, Whittaker believes.<\/p>\n
For now, he\u2019ll stay in Las Vegas and have tentative conversations with the UFC about the move, and a plan that could see him challenge for that championship.<\/p>\n
“I’m always one to two [wins] from the [title shot] conversation, even in the middleweight division which is just as ripe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
With UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira teasing a move to heavyweight, it may not be long until the title is vacant, left to be decided by former champs Jiri Prochazka and Magomed Ankalaev, and potentially top contender Carlos Ulberg \u2014 a kickboxer whom Whittaker knows well from the New Zealand fight scene.<\/p>\n
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It raises the question as to whether Whittaker would ever fight Ulberg for a headlining fight in the UFC\u2019s next event around his region.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve trained with him now, and we’re kind of mates \u2014 I don’t think it would be right,\u201d Whittaker said, ruling it out. \u201cEven now, if I did move to light heavy, I’d want to train with him [rather than fight him].\u201d<\/p>\n
Not thinking too much about specific opponents, Whittaker, for now at least, appears focused on the new division and the location for his comeback instead.<\/p>\n
“I just want to fight in June, and to be on the White House card would be awesome,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The UFC\u2019s prospective event on the lawns of the White House is tentatively scheduled for June, with Dana White and the promotion\u2019s matchmakers expected to construct the card in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Whittaker is \u201c90%\u201d convinced he\u2019ll leave the middleweight division this year. The 35-year-old has been a 185-pound…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,61176,19962,75763,17831,85,34466],"class_list":{"0":"post-456352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-derek-brunson","12":"tag-light-heavyweight","13":"tag-middleweight-division","14":"tag-robert-whittaker","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-ufc-middleweight-champion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456352","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=456352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}