Coach: ‘Robert Whittaker Is Not a Good Matchup for Khamzat Chimaev’

Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight great Robert Whittaker needs someone to fight.

At UFC 284 in Perth, Australia, Whittaker was linked to a fight against Paulo Costa. Negotiations fell apart, with the promotion announcing the fight before the two agreed. Costa publicly chided the UFC for putting forth the news of the bout before it came together, and it was ultimately scrapped from the lineup. As the former champion sits on the shelf waiting for a call, one such fighter has offered to take him on: Khamzat Chimaev. Whitaker’s head coach, Alex Prates, spoke to Sherdog about that fight and UFC 284 as a whole, but was quick to remark that, “Whittaker is not a good matchup [for] Chimaev.”

“That’s the fight UFC wants,” Prates stated. “We have nothing official from UFC, but I think it will be so big as it would be a title fight.”

A disciple of Mario Sperry, coach Prates has been away from his home country of Brazil for the last 23 years. Training many excellent fighters including Whittaker over the years, the coach is fully immersed in the sport and was more than willing to heap praise on his fighter’s potential opponent.

“No doubt Chimaev is one of the toughest guys out there, great grappling and wrestling skills,” the coach freely admitted, “but the specific style matchup with Robert is not good for him, [as] Robert is superior to him in striking and is very hard to be taken down. Not only because of his takedown defense, but also for the way he moves. Even if Chimaev is able to take him down, he will lose a lot of energy trying to keep him there and, after that, the striking disparity between both will start to be clear in a three-round fight.”

Ahead of UFC 284, there has been some commotion about the UFC’s activity or lack thereof to promote the blockbuster card. As a resident of Australia, Prates has his finger on the pulse of the community. The coach believes that the UFC did not drop the proverbial ball in pushing this event, at odds with what headliner Islam Makhachev claimed recently.

“I have to disagree with Makhachev,” Prates explained. “My academy in Sydney is located 4,000 km away from Perth and, one hour ago, when I was coming to my class, I heard an advertisement for UFC 284 on the radio. If you consider that the tickets were also sold out in a few hours, and the huge name Volkanovski has here, for sure Islam is wrong.

“Actually, UFC historically had great numbers here in Australia. I’ve heard that, besides having the two biggest gates of UFC history of 57,000 [at] UFC 243 and 56,000 [at] UFC 193, they also have the record of fastest ticket selling of Marvel Stadium in Perth, beating The Rolling Stones, who had the second-fastest ticket selling record. I cannot talk about PPV-selling advertising around the world, but here in Australia, for sure the event is pretty much in the media,” the coach concluded.