Bedtime MMA<\/a> when asked about Rogan\u2019s commentary. \u201cYou know what it is. You should see the amount of memes that came out after that commentary; it\u2019s crazy. It was wild. I picked up on that comment, but I assumed it was, like, an accident when they said they had \u2018the blueprint to beat me.\u2019 I don\u2019t understand where that blueprint was. I don\u2019t know, but I felt great.<\/p>\n\u201cObviously, this is my first fight at light heavyweight. First weight cut at light heavyweight. First re-feed. There\u2019s a lot of things I can do differently because I realized while I still cut a fair amount day of, I don\u2019t need to refuel as much because I\u2019m eating the whole week full, the whole week into the wake-up, which means I\u2019m kind of salt-loaded much more than I needed to be. But I felt strong, and I was still fast. I walked in there about 103 kilos [approx. 227 pounds], which is normal because I\u2019m a heavyset guy, and I still had my speed behind me. You could see every time I put hands on Krylov, it wasn\u2019t like pitter patter. He was getting hurt every time; I kind of set the pace with that. So I\u2019m really happy and comfortable with my debut in the division.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the fight progressed, Rogan\u2019s appraisal of Whittaker\u2019s efforts became more positive. Whittaker stifled the larger Kyrlov\u2019s attempts to take the fight to the ground and pulled away in the standup before finding the finish early in Round 3.<\/p>\n
Even Whittaker can admit that he wasn\u2019t at his best early on, though.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the first round could have started better,\u201d Whittaker said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it was because of his pace in trying to force that takedown and wear on me; he came off second best in that exchange, or if it was the nerves of everything kind of falling on my shoulders. Had two losses in middleweight, just moved up to light heavyweight, had a lot of doubters and stuff like that. I don\u2019t know if it was a combination of both or something specific, or maybe it was just a slow start.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the beginning could have started a little sharper, maybe. I could have had some more impactful moments; I could have set things up a little bit, I could have worked the distance a little bit. Should have used my feet maybe a bit more. I think I maybe threw two kicks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right now, Whittaker is loving life at light heavyweight even as he\u2019s still adjusting to his third weight class in the UFC. \u201cThe Reaper\u201d won The Ultimate Fighter: The Smashes as a welterweight in 2012, later moving up to 185 pounds where he captured gold in 2017, and now he looks to close out his storied career at 205 pounds.<\/p>\n
A number of potential challenges await him, including fellow former champion Jan Blachowicz, top 15 light heavyweights Khalil Rountree and Bogdan Guskov, or another middleweight transplant Paulo Costa, whom Whittaker holds a win over.<\/p>\n
The name isn\u2019t important for Whittaker, who hopes to book another fight before the end of 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cJan would be a good fight; I like that fight,\u201d Whittaker said. \u201cI think Rountree or Bogdan, those guys are all good guys. I think Jiri [Prochazka] wants to fight Costa. It depends who\u2019s ready. My whole thing with the UFC is I give them a date, and they give me a name. So whoever\u2019s ready by the end of the year, I\u2019ll step in there with.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe light heavyweight division is so fluid right now. You can just have a good win and be put straight into a title conversation. Look at Costa. Came in and put in a really good showing, and he\u2019s got a case of getting the title fight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Whittaker has no idea where Joe Rogan was coming from when he was analyzing his recent win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-844723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844723","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=844723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}