Robert Whittaker delivered on fight night despite a rough start to his UFC Saudi Arabia journey.
The former middleweight champion showed out in this past Saturday’s UFC main event, needing less than two minutes to put away Ikram Aliskerov. It was a statement win for Whittaker, who had more to lose than gain after seeing originally scheduled opponent Khamzat Chimaev bow out of the contest due to an illness.
Following the event, Whittaker’s manager Titus Day told Fox Sports Australia that his fighter has also been experiencing health problems, and that Whittaker underwent emergency surgery 24 hours before they were to fly to Saudi Arabia.
“Rob has a really bad abscess that flared up a week before flying out,” Day said. “He had headaches, tooth pain, it was like he’d been kicked in the side of the head. He couldn’t train, couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. It was f*cking painful.
“The whole side of his head was in pain so we had to rush him in for emergency surgery.”
Whittaker made no mention of these issues before or after his fight with Aliskerov. When asked about why he agreed to take on a lesser known but still dangerous opponent, he typically replied that it is his job to fight anyone, anywhere, and that he expected his preparation for Chimaev to benefit him even with a different matchup.
The real question was what shape he would be in when they arrived in Saudi Arabia.
“Rob had already stopped training a few days prior to the surgery in Sydney,” Day said. “And then flew out with his face still numb. We had no idea if it was going to be alright. Everyone was just praying the swelling would go down and everything would be OK. And thankfully, it was.
“But Rob’s still got pain there. Still needs more surgery to be done in the next couple of weeks.”
Day could not pinpoint the source of the injury, though he mentioned that Whittaker had his lower teeth damaged in a previous fight and that they had put off surgery at the time.
Whittaker has now won three of his past four fights, beating Aliskerov and ranked contenders Paulo Costa and Marvin Vettori in that stretch. At the UFC Saudi Arabia post-fight press conference, Whittaker told reporters that he could be available to serve as a backup to the Aug. 17 UFC 305 main event in Perth, Australia, between middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis and Israel Adesanya.
However, his team is putting plans on hold until they can be sure of his condition come August.
“Right now, regarding Perth, it’s just too early to say,” Day said. “Obviously there was a lot of talk on the night about Rob being the backup for that UFC 305 main event. There was also talk about him fighting somebody else, too. And potentially, he could still do either of those. He’ll have to meet with the team and talk it through.”
