Robert Whittaker delivered on combat night time regardless of a tough begin to his UFC Saudi Arabia journey.
The previous middleweight champion confirmed out on this previous Saturday’s UFC major occasion, needing lower than two minutes to place away Ikram Aliskerov. It was a press release win for Whittaker, who had extra to lose than achieve after seeing initially scheduled opponent Khamzat Chimaev bow out of the competition as a consequence of an sickness.
Following the occasion, Whittaker’s supervisor Titus Day informed Fox Sports activities Australia that his fighter has additionally been experiencing well being issues, and that Whittaker underwent emergency surgical procedure 24 hours earlier than they had been to fly to Saudi Arabia.
“Rob has a very dangerous abscess that flared up per week earlier than flying out,” Day mentioned. “He had complications, tooth ache, it was like he’d been kicked within the facet of the pinnacle. He couldn’t practice, couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. It was f*cking painful.
“The entire facet of his head was in ache so we needed to rush him in for emergency surgical procedure.”
Whittaker made no point out of those points earlier than or after his combat with Aliskerov. When requested about why he agreed to tackle a lesser identified however nonetheless harmful opponent, he usually replied that it’s his job to combat anybody, anyplace, and that he anticipated his preparation for Chimaev to profit him even with a unique matchup.
The true query was what form he could be in after they arrived in Saudi Arabia.
“Rob had already stopped coaching a number of days previous to the surgical procedure in Sydney,” Day mentioned. “After which flew out together with his face nonetheless numb. We had no concept if it was going to be alright. Everybody was simply praying the swelling would go down and all the things could be OK. And fortunately, it was.
“However Rob’s nonetheless obtained ache there. Nonetheless wants extra surgical procedure to be performed within the subsequent couple of weeks.”
Day couldn’t pinpoint the supply of the harm, although he talked about that Whittaker had his decrease tooth broken in a earlier combat and that that they had delay surgical procedure on the time.
Whittaker has now received three of his previous 4 fights, beating Aliskerov and ranked contenders Paulo Costa and Marvin Vettori in that stretch. On the UFC Saudi Arabia post-fight press convention, Whittaker informed reporters that he could possibly be obtainable to function a backup to the Aug. 17 UFC 305 major occasion in Perth, Australia, between middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis and Israel Adesanya.
Nevertheless, his crew is placing plans on maintain till they are often certain of his situation come August.
“Proper now, relating to Perth, it’s simply too early to say,” Day mentioned. “Clearly there was quite a lot of speak on the night time about Rob being the backup for that UFC 305 major occasion. There was additionally speak about him combating any person else, too. And doubtlessly, he may nonetheless do both of these. He’ll have to satisfy with the crew and speak it via.”
