Ex-UFC Champ Robert Whittaker Calls Himself ‘Most Dangerous Man in the Division’

In the UFC Fight Night 209 co-main event, Robert Whittaker proved once again that he’s a cut above most of the middleweight division.

The former champion picked apart fomer title challenger Marvin Vettori for three rounds, ultimately winning a clear-cut unanimous decision at Accor Arena in Paris on Saturday. Whittaker has won 13 of his last 15 promotional appearances, with his only two setbacks coming at the hands of reigning 185-pound king Israel Adesanya.

“I’m the most dangerous man in the division,” Whittaker said at Saturday’s post-fight press conference. “Israel’s the champ. He beat me twice, hats off to him for that. He’s a great fighter, he really is. And I think stylistically he’s a great fighter, but I still think I’m the most dangerous man in the division, because I win. I win a lot and I make people hate fighting. I take the fight out of them, because that’s what I do. I get in there and I get to work.”

Adesanya knocked Whittaker out in the second round to claim middleweight gold in the first meeting at UFC 243, but their rematch at UFC 271 on Feb. 12 was much more competitive, though “The Last Stylebender” emerged with a unanimous decision triumph. Whittaker admitted that it took him some time to mentally recover from that initial defeat.

“He knocked me out in the first one, and the second one was a really close decision that, I’m not butthurt about it, but on another day it could have been my win,” Whittaker said. “Mentally, that’s massive. It’s very hard to explain how it feels to get knocked out and lose your belt like that. It sucks. There’s a bit of a learning process afterward, a bit of a picking the pieces up process, and doubts and whatnot. I conquered most of them before that second fight, and in that second fight, I conquered the rest of them, and I think you could see that in this fight today.”

While Whittaker recently mentioned that a move to 205 pounds could be a possibility, it’s clear that he’s still on top of his game as a middleweight.

“I’m a fiend for progress,” Whittaker said. “I want to move forward. I’m hunting that gold still. So I’m always going to lurking around, just destroying who they put in front of me until I get a chance to gobble up that gold.”

Whittaker figures to have a significant interest in the upcoming championship bout between Adesanya and Alex Pereira, which is set to headlined UFC 281 at Madison Square Garden in New York on Nov. 12. A victory for Pereira could put Whittaker right back at the top of the list contenders, but he’s well aware of the challenge the champion presents.

“[Adesanya] is very good – he’s very good,” Whittaker said. “I think his style of fighting, he’s a very good defensive fighter, and he has the physical attributes to do it, as well as the talent and the craft. He’s got the eyes, the head for it. He’s good at what he does. He can avoid danger like nobody’s business, and that makes him hard to dethrone, especially if you go to the points. He’s very hard to dethrone.

“I think Pereira is interesting, because they’ve fought before, and the small gloves add some element that’s different from their kickboxing fights. And Pereira’s huge. He’s got the range and the reach, and he’s very offensive with it, so we’re going to see that. But they’re wearing small gloves. He hit him in the kickboxing fight. Small gloves change things. You see it every night. The small gloves change fights.”