Robert Whittaker offers up quite a few reasons on why Alex Pereira vs. Jamahal Hill played out the way it did.
In the main event of UFC 300 last weekend, UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Pereira welcomed back Hill to the division after he relinquished his title due to injury last summer. It was an immediate title shot for the former champ after a year away, but his time at the top quickly expired after a left hand from Pereira put him down.
Whittaker: Pereira Is ‘Leagues Ahead’ In The Stand-Up
Not many fighters have been able to stand and trade with “Poatan” for long with former UFC Middleweight Champion Israel Adesanya being the only fighter capable of stopping Pereira in his near-perfect run in the Octagon. Even then, Pereira is still up 3-1 on his rival with two wins in Glory Kickboxing and one in MMA.
In his move to light heavyweight, former UFC Champ Robert Whittaker reckons Pereira is head and shoulders above everybody else in the striking department.
“We look at his actual fighting prowess and the dude is just a phenom in the stand-up game, in the stand-up world, he is leagues ahead of most other, or definitely of any other light heavyweight [and] most people in the game,” Whittaker said on ‘The MMArcade Podcast‘.
“Obviously that stems from his ridiculous amounts of experience and championship level of fighting in Glory [Kickboxing]. But, he looked so composed and I think he threw three punches that night and one of them knocked Jamahal Hill out. It is crazy.”
Whittaker Weighs In On The Somewhat Controversial Fight, Says Hill Looked ‘Frozen’
There was some controversy around the knockout in the UFC 300 headliner, however, as Daniel Cormier recently pointed out. Right before Pereira knocked Hill down, he received a kick to the groin with referee Herb Dean wanting to pause the action. The champ quickly brushed it off, continuing on with the action and caught Hill with the first punch he threw.
Whittaker says Hill was “stuck in the mud” during this sequence and that he didn’t adhere to MMA’s age-old rule: “Protect yourself at all times”.
“I think first things first is never ever, ever, ever drop your guard, ever— no matter what,” Whittaker continued. “It’s like until someone pulls you off him or until someone stops you physically, you don’t stop. Because you can’t, I’m not putting, you can’t put your safety in the ref or anybody else. It’s on you. Secondly, I think it’s tricky because the line’s a bit blurred. If the ref’s gonna step in, he needs to step in. If the ref’s not gonna step in, he’s not gonna step in.
“I don’t think the fighters and the fighter’s reactions should ever really have an impact on what the ref is doing. You’ve seen it done before where like a fighter leans over and says, ‘Oh, it was a low blow’. And then the replay comes and the ref stops it, and the replay comes and it sees nothing. It was just bull crap… I don’t think it would’ve changed anything.”
Whittaker continued.
In my opinion, the way the fight was leaning was very much towards Pereira. If I wanna say anything, Hill looked a little stiff. He looked a little frozen. He looked a little stuck in the mud, if I’m gonna be honest.”
‘Really Slow Start’ From Hill Led To Super Fast Finish
From Pereira’s insane punching power to Hill’s stiffness in a fight-costing moment, Whittaker believes there are even more reasons behind why “Sweet Dreams” had a nightmare at UFC 300, emphasizing Hill’s 448-day layoff from his last fight at UFC 283.
“I think the time off affected him,” Whittaker went on. “It’s not ring rust per se. It’s more not being used to the lights, the pressure, the nervousness. ‘Used to’ is the wrong way of saying it. It’s like climatizing almost. So the more you do something, the more comfortable you get at it. So, fighting regularly or semi-regularly helps you climatize to those nerves, those pressures. The adrenaline dump, the adrenaline spikes, the lights.
“Sometimes we see this with fighters that have a layoff. They have a pretty bad first round, but then they climatized by the second, third, fourth, fifth. I feel like that’s what we saw with Hill. I feel like unfortunately the time off, the lights hit him. Massive fight, massive stakes and I think it started him slow. He had like a really slow start and Pereira didn’t let him get a run-up, didn’t let him warm up at all. That’s not what he should be doing anyway. I think that was the reason [Hill lost].”
Do you agree with Robert Whittaker’s analysis on the UFC 300 main event? Was it too much too soon for the former champ Jamahal Hill?
