Robert Whittaker has competed just twice in the last two years. In this time, he won a fight against Yoel Romero and went down to Israel Adesanya at UFC 243. Following that, he disappeared from the scene and has been inactive for the past 9 and a half months.
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Now the former UFC Middleweight Champion will make his return in the main event of UFC on ESPN 14. Here he will fight Darren Till in the UFC’s final offering from Fight Island. Ahead of his return, ‘The Reaper’ addressed the media and revealed why he decided that it was time to step into the Octagon once more.
Robert Whittaker says the break is exactly what he needed
Via MMA Junkie, the top-ranked Middleweight contender said, “It feels good, it feels good, I was hungry. I’ve been hungry. That break I had was exactly what I needed. It lit a fire in me, it brought back the happiness and enjoyment in what I do. Because a lot of people don’t realize that the fight is 15-25 minutes.”
Distancing oneself from what they love doing and breaking from the routine is an oft used ploy to get back into the groove. It seems to have worked wonders with the former Champion.
He continued, “You know? Every other day is in training, every other day you spend in the gym. That’s the rest of life and that’s what I had to come to grips with…And just having that break, being away from the training and away from the gyms, it just lit that fire in me. It re-invigorated me.”
He will need to be at his peak against Darren Till, who heads into the fight on the back of a win. ‘The Gorilla’ beat Kelvin Gastelum in his previous fight. The win ended his streak of consecutive defeats and marked a successful return to Middleweight.
The British fighter will want to make it 2 wins on the trot at 185 lbs and get a win over a top fighter to stake his claim for a future title shot.
Do you see a refreshed, hungry, and re-invigorated Robert Whittaker being able to stop Darren Till?
