Robert Whittaker has some words of caution for Alex Pereira.
At UFC 305, Dricus du Plessis made the first successful defense of his middleweight title by stopping former two-time champion Israel Adesanya. It was an impressive win that caught the attention of former middleweight champion and current light heavyweight champion Pereira, who suggested post-fight that he might make a return to 185 pounds to square off with du Plessis. But Whittaker says Pereira shouldn’t view du Plessis as an easy mark.
“Well, I hope not,” Whittaker said on Submission Radio when asked if he believes Pereira will go back down to middleweight. “Honestly, I don’t think that’s a good fight for him. I don’t think that’s a good fight for him. But also, when you move up to light heavyweight, moving back down is tricky. And it’s not like you move up for one fight. He stayed up there. He’s been fighting up there for a while now. So it’s it would be it would take a lot out of him to get down, and Dricus is so strong there.”
Pereira began his UFC career as a middleweight and won the title over Adesanya at UFC 281. After losing the belt in their UFC 287 rematch, “Poatan” moved up to light heavyweight, where he won the title and has defended it twice.
But despite those recent successes, Whittaker still questions how a depleted Pereira would do against the power and aggression of du Plessis.
“Alex gets hit,” Whittaker said. “OK? And Dricus likes getting hit.
“It’s hard to see someone with the amount of power to stop Dricus from walking forward into you, and Dricus hits hard. You saw that in the fight against Adesanya. Adesanya has got a really good chin, and Dricus was still hurting him enough to, you know, to to make him uncomfortable. So yeah.”
Whittaker, of course, knows plenty about du Plessis. The former middleweight champion faced off with “Stillknocks” back at UFC 290, where he was stopped in the second round. And like he believes Pereira might be doing now, Whittaker says he didn’t give du Plessis the credit he deserved heading into that fight.
“I’d like to think that I never underestimate my opponents, but I probably did [with] him,” Whittaker said. “Maybe, it’s hard to say. The prep wasn’t ideal. Everybody says it. You look at him fight, and the guy looks like a pub fighter, right? But he just keeps smashing people.
“Like I said, in that first fight with him, I saw the punches coming. I moved out of the way. I felt good in there. I was like, ‘I got this.’ And then I got punched in the face. It’s not a pretty style, but it’s effective. Super effective. And I think the biggest thing is the mentality behind his shots. If you’re not at that level, if you’re not on the same plane of offering as he is, then he’s going to run away with it.”
If Pereira does make good on his warning and return to 185 pounds, it won’t be for awhile. The UFC light heavyweight champ is currently scheduled to defend his belt against Khalil Rountree Jr. in the main event of UFC 307 on Oct. 5 in Salt Lake City.
