Robert Whittaker has nothing but praise for Israel Adesanya.
At UFC 287, Adesanya reclaimed his middleweight title with a second-round KO win over Alex Pereira. It was a great knockout and middleweight contender, Whittaker says watching that fight was amazing to see two high-level strikers go at it.
“We were graciously given a window into some really high-level kickboxing, some really high-level striking. It was phenomenal to see, you could see both dudes were very cautious with their approach and feeling each other out,” Whittaker said on his MMArcade Podcast.
Entering the fight, Robert Whittaker said he saw holes in Alex Pereira’s game when he got aggressive when he thinks he has his opponent hurt against the fence. Whittaker says Pereira doesn’t get his hand by his chin as instead, he’s too worried about getting the finish.
‘I’m not an Izzy fan but I can respect phenomenal striking’
With that, Whittaker has nothing but praise for Adesanya to realize that hole and capitalize on it to get the KO win.
“If you look at Pereira’s past fights, when he pushes someone up against the fence and looking to string together combos of two, three, four and looking to hurt. He has the same rhythm, he has the same holes,” Whittaker continued. “He doesn’t bring his hook all the way back to his chin. He is most open to getting hit in that moment. Izzy did a phenomenal job of researching that, studying that, sticking with it when he was in that scenario to have the guts to pull that off and to win the way he did. Especially with the story and the comeback after three losses, hats off to him. I’m not an Izzy fan but I can respect phenomenal striking and skillsets and movements when I see it. That was a good win, that was a very good win.”
With Israel Adesanya getting the KO win over Alex Pereira at UFC 287, he is once against the middleweight champ. Although Whittaker is 0-2 against ‘The Last Stylebender’ he’s hopeful to get the third crack at him next time out.
