After reinventing himself at middleweight and parlaying the decision into five straight wins, No. 3-ranked Robert Whittaker is in the for the fight of his career when he meets No. 1 Yoel Romero for the interim 185-pound championship in the co-main event of this weekend’s (Sat., July 8, 2017) UFC 213 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The 26-year-old New Zealander has risen to the top the old-fashioned way as well, choosing to let his fists and feet do his talking on the way to a title fight rather than jumping the queue with well-timed trash talk. In fact, Whittaker remains respectful of the similarly streaking Romero, expressing his excitement at the huge fight in a recent interview with TMZ Sports:
“First and foremost, I’m just excited to be fighting Yoel Romero. I wanna the top of the food chain, I wanna fight that high fight. You know, Yoel’s a great name to fight, and I wanna fight him, and that’s before anything.”
One fighter he’s not as respectful of is the champion, however, as Whittaker put things in plain terms when resented with the prospect of Bisping saying the UFC 213 co-main was a worthless fight. To him, the fact that “the Count” hasn’t faced a true top middleweight throughout his entire controversial title reign means he needed to step in and keep the division moving:
“Secondly, Bisping’s out; he hasn’t fought a guy in the Top 10 for a long time. And you know, someone’s gotta keep his seat warm. and I’m happy to do that.”
But even though he could be headed for a fight against Bisping if and when he defeats Romero, “The Reaper” held strong in the stance that he’s only focused on Romero right now, probably a good idea considering the brute force stopping power of the Cuban wrestling behemoth:
“I haven’t given in a thought, man. There is nothing past Yoel Romero. July 88 is the end of my calendar year.”
Finally, Whittaker closed by offering a warning to “The Soldier of God,” suggesting he should be ready for a war on Saturday:
“Hope you’re ready. It’s going to be a tough fight and expect a war.”
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