At 33-years old, former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker has accumulated a lifetime’s worth of experience inside the Octagon. This accumulation of fights at the highest level is one of his strongest attributes and it will be key to his next outing this Saturday.
In the co-main event of UFC 308 in Abu Dhabi, Whittaker faces the undefeated Khamzat Chimaev after the pairing were initially matched up earlier this year. Chimaev withdraw from their planned main event in Saudi Arabia but Whittaker chose to stay on the card.
With his most destructive performance in quite some time, “The Reaper” stopped replacement opponent Ikram Aliskerov in under two minutes. Chimaev presents a very different threat but it’s one that a former rival of his believes that Whittaker can come through.
Many expect that the veteran will have the advantage in the later rounds due to the differences in styles between the two men. We haven’t seen Chimaev get tested over five rounds whereas Whittaker has been the full 25-minute distance plenty of times.
In his breakdowns and picks for the fights this weekend, former champ Israel Adesanya sided with Whittaker to get the win by overcoming a tough start to the fight against the aggressive and explosive Chimaev.
Adesanya has shared the Octagon with Whittaker on two previous occasions and believes that with his win over Aliskerov, he reminded people just how good he is.
“I just think, again, Rob is just a guy not to be f***** with. I mean, look at his last fight. So hopefully people remember who he is now so I think Rob will do it again, maybe not as early, definitely not as early. I don’t think so, I just think he’ll catch him later on but he has to weather the storm man. He has to survive. He has to survive till he can’t and let me see, I’m gonna go Rob with this one with a late finish, round four.”
