Robert Whittaker had a hard time getting an opponent for his next fight.
Whittaker made his light heavyweight debut in July and scored a TKO win over Nikita Krylov. The former UFC middleweight champion had been trying to get another fight but he had a hard time getting opponents.
Whittaker is now set to return at UFC Sydney on Feb. 6 in the co-main event against Bogdan Guskov, which is later than he wanted.
“I wanted to get in there sooner; I wanted to get in around that November or December period,” Whittaker said to Ariel Helwani. “We were trying to get dates and names, and guys weren’t jumping at the bit to jump up and fight. February was just around the corner when we realized somebody would take the fight and tried to get something lined up.”
‘It didn’t work for them’
Part of the reason why Whittaker isn’t fighting until February is the fact that multiple fighters turned him down until Guskov accepted the fight.
“I felt grateful; we threw out the fight to a bunch of other guys, and it didn’t work for them,” Whittaker added. “When we finally got the name and they said, ‘Hey, Bogdan wants to get in Sydney next year,’ I was like, ‘Hell yeah.’ I haven’t fought in Sydney for 12 years. That was my middleweight debut… It worked out better in a way.”
Luckily, Guskov did accept the fight. He will take on Whittaker in the co-main event in a fun fight at light heavyweight. If Whittaker wins, he will be close to a title shot, so the stakes are high.
Whittaker is 27-9 as a pro and is coming off a TKO win over Krylov. Before that, he lost back-to-back fights to Reinier de Ridder and Khamzat Chimaev in his final fights at middleweight.
This article appeared first on BJPENN.COM
