{"id":644073,"date":"2026-05-02T03:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T03:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/644073\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T03:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T03:12:08","slug":"robert-whittaker-books-lhw-debut-for-ufc-329-this-july","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/644073\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Whittaker Books LHW Debut For UFC 329 This July"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker will make his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/latest-news\/424627\/former-ufc-middleweight-champion-robert-whittaker-officially-makes-the-move-to-light-heavyweight-i-want-to-give-it-a-go\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">official move to light heavyweight<\/a> at UFC 329 on July 11 from inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, as \u201cReaper\u201d leaves 185 pounds behind to test his luck against veteran contender Nikita Krylov.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">This is according to an initial report by Russian MMA outlet, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/VestnikMMA\" rel=\"nofollow\">Vestnik MMA<\/a>. Check it out below:<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Whittaker, 35, has been around for a long, long time. The popular New Zealand fighter first competed in UFC\u2019s welterweight division from 2012-2014 before making a move to middleweight. From there, Whittaker racked off an impressive 14-5 record, which includes a win over Yoel Romero at UFC 213 to claim interim UFC gold (he was later promoted to undisputed champion). Whittaker is coming off back-to-back losses to Khamzat Chimaev and Reinier de Ridder, though, so a change in scenery could be nice for \u201cReaper.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Krylov, 34, has has a rough go since returning to competition in 2025 following a two-year hiatus from the sport. After dropping consecutive knockouts losses to Dominick Reyes and Bogdan Guskov the veteran light heavyweight did score a finish over Modestas Bukauskas his last time out at UFC 324 this past January. That\u2019s a good win to stop the bleeding, but Krylov is far from the contender he once was at 205 pounds. That could all change with a marquee win over a former champion like Whittaker.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Stick with Mania for more UFC 329 and International Fight Week news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker will make his official move to light heavyweight at UFC 329 on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396,178239,179146,1647],"class_list":["post-644073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news","tag-ufc-on-cbs","tag-ufc-on-paramount","tag-upcoming-ufc-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644073","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=644073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}