Robert Whittaker was not shocked to see the Australian crowd get behind Sean Strickland in opposition to Israel Adesanya at UFC 293.
Strickland met Adesanya within the pay-per-view (PPV) major occasion for the latter’s then-middleweight crown. When it was all mentioned and completed, Strickland pulled off one of many largest upsets in combined martial arts (MMA) historical past, defeating “Stylebender” through unanimous resolution. Throughout combat week, Strickland truly garnered lots of assist from the Australian crowd.
Even through the combat, the group started to cheer for Strickland, who was clearly getting the higher of Adesanya through the contest. It was fairly an attention-grabbing flip of occasions given Adesanya is a New Zealand resident. Australian and former 185-pound champion Robert Whittaker, nevertheless, was not shocked by this.
As he defined on The MMA Hour, Whittaker believes Strickland, who has a behavior of rubbing lots of people the flawed method, hasn’t gotten to that time simply but with the Australian fanbase.
“No, I’d’ve been shocked the opposite method,” Whittaker mentioned (through MMA Combating). “I don’t know, and all people is aware of I’m not mates with Izzy. I don’t hate the man, however I’m not mates with him by any means. We simply rub one another the flawed method. And he appears to rub lots of people the flawed method. And I’m going to say, Sean, you understand, he was carrying the [Crocodile Dundee] hat. He was carrying the hat. That’s one thing. Perhaps that’s all it takes.
“Everybody has completed foolish issues, you understand? I assume Sean’s been, I feel, very offensive to lots of people proper? However to not us [in Australia] but,. Perhaps we’ve been out of the crosshairs a bit of bit, so possibly that performed a job. However one other factor is, like, the followers and the blokes that confirmed up on Sunday [at UFC 293], they like seeing arduous fights they usually like seeing good fights. Sean went on the market and gave his all and had one of many largest upsets within the middleweight division.”
Whittaker is not any stranger to Adesanya. It was the Nigerian-born striker who defeated Whittaker again in 2019 through knockout, ending “The Reaper’s” reign as champion. They’d rematch in 2022, the place Adesanya once more defeated him, this time through unanimous resolution. In his final outing, Whittaker was stopped by rising contender Dricus du Plessis within the second spherical this previous July. His subsequent opponent has but to be decided.
As for Strickland and Adesanya, it stays to be seen who the pair will combat subsequent after their title bout final month. Nevertheless, UFC president Dana White has steered he’d prefer to see a direct rematch.
