Robert Whittaker isn’t ruling out the idea of moving up to light heavyweight.
With Whittaker being 0-2 against the champ in Israel Adesanya, many have wondered what he will do as it’s likely he won’t get another middleweight title shot for the time being. However, he hinted on Wednesday he is close to returning in June likely against Marvin Vettori at UFC 275, in an intriguing matchup.
Although the focus for Whittaker is still at middleweight, he isn’t ruling out a move to 205lbs. According to the former champ, he says he walks around 215-220lbs so the move to 205 isn’t out of the picture.
“I’ve considered it, because going up is definitely the option, not going down,” Whittaker said on The MMA Hour. “And I’ve considered it. But the only thing is, I feel like I’m so good at middleweight. I’ve got the cut well down. My strength versus cardio versus speed is just on point. I feel like I’d lose some of that if I move up to 205, so it might be — I don’t know, I think I’m going to try and just work my way up to a title shot here one more time and then play with the idea afterwards.”
Robert Whittaker is coming off a razor-close decision loss to Israel Adesanya in February. After the loss, the Aussie said he would return again and would continue to fight and now, he is returning much sooner. The goal for ‘The Reaper’ is to get three fights in this year and see how the middleweight division is after that.
“There might be something in the works,” Whittaker said with a grin. “I might have a name picked out, I might have a location picked out, and you know, I’m turning it around sooner than I normally do and just jumping straight back in there. It wasn’t part of the plan, but I was offered an opportunity, presented with it, and honestly, I don’t have any injuries from the last fight. There’s a lot of things — just the date suits up, there’s a lot of things that I had planned for after the date. And I wanted to get three fights in this year, so hitting a potential fight in June is a good day for me.”
