Robert Whittaker is considering a possible light heavyweight move, and he\u2019s aware of the naysayers.<\/p>\n
Whittaker, a former UFC Middleweight Champion, recently turned 35 and he has said he doesn\u2019t envision competing in MMA for much longer than another year<\/a>. He has expressed interest in transitioning to the boxing world<\/a>, so perhaps he has more years ahead in combat sports.<\/p>\n Before he ultimately puts the MMA gloves down, Whittaker is mulling over a move up to the 205-pound division. \u201cThe Reaper\u201d took to his \u201cMMArcade Podcast\u201d<\/a> to respond to those who are skeptical of his viability as a light heavyweight (via MMAFighting<\/a>).<\/p>\n \u201cI want to get in there probably about mid-next year. I don\u2019t know if it will be at middleweight,\u201d Whittaker said. \u201cI\u2019m actually playing with the idea [about moving to light heavyweight]. Potentially.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a bigger guy now. Everyone\u2019s going to say, \u2018Oh, he\u2019s too short!\u2019 They\u2019re taller than me here [at middleweight], what\u2019s the difference? Everyone\u2019s got height on me anyway. Everyone\u2019s got reach on me anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n Whittaker is in the midst of a two-fight skid. He suffered a first-round submission loss to Khamzat Chimaev and followed that up with a split decision loss to Reinier de Ridder. Whittaker last win was back in June 2024 when he stopped Ikram Aliskerov via knockout in the first round.<\/p>\n A change in weight class would introduce fresh matchups for \u201cThe Reaper.\u201d There are a slew of contenders at light heavyweight that will test whether or not Whittaker can adjust when at a size disadvantage. As Whittaker mentioned on his podcast, he feels he\u2019s often outmatched in terms of reach at middleweight and he doesn\u2019t see it getting much worse at light heavyweight.<\/p>\n Whittaker still hasn\u2019t made a decision on which division he will compete in next. BJPenn.com will keep you updated on what the former champion decides to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Whittaker is considering a possible light heavyweight move, and he\u2019s aware of the naysayers. Whittaker, a former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-374545","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-mma","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}