This will be a different fight. All about Adesanya’s rematch with Whittaker at UFC 271

Tomorrow morning in the main event of UFC 271 in Houston, there will be an intriguing title rematch between current middleweight champion Israel Adesanya and former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker.

What happened in the first fight at UFC 243

In October 2019, after two tough battles with Yoel Romero, Robert Whittaker faced the fast-growing prospect Israel Adesanya. By that time, “Izzy” already had several big victories over Marvin Vattari, Derek Brunson, Anderson Silva and Kelvin Gastelum, but many still considered him an untested fighter by inertia.

The champion started much more active and threw a lot more punches. Surely he would have taken the first round if, at the last second of the starting five-minute period, he had not missed an inconspicuous short right hook that knocked him down. If not for the gong, it would all be over by now.

True, everything looked so that from that moment the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Adesanya adapted himself to his opponent’s attacks and visually easily evaded his blows, while he himself had already picked up the keys to the opponent’s defense. At some point, instead of the usual gap in the distance, he rested his feet on the floor and accepted an exchange, where he planted a powerful left hook right in the jaw of his opponent. Whittaker fell heavily to the floor and almost did not defend himself, which gave the referee reason to intervene.

Whittaker’s bug work

The Australian accepted defeat with dignity, calling his opponent the best on that particular evening. Later, the “Reaper” admitted that Adesanya managed to get into his head, and therefore the fighter was not himself, both in the training camp and in the cage. Indeed, looking back, Robert’s hunt for the opponent’s head and the desire to knock out the opponent as soon as possible looked somewhat reckless. According to the ex-champion, this was due to poor preparation for the fight.

“It was a burnout. I didn’t want to go to training and give all my best there one hundred percent, ”Rob explained in an interview.

After that fight, Whittaker returned to the winning trail, defeating Darren Till, Jared Cannonier and Kelvin Gastelum. To date, the “Reaper” is the most worthy contender for the middleweight title and it is he who has the best chances to break the hegemony of the “Lord of Styles”, who cleared the division and is forced to enter the second round.

Adesanya vs Whittaker 2. Who will win the rematch?

Robert Whittaker will certainly make adjustments in his actions and will not be overly aggressive, so as not to exhaust himself ahead of time and not fail in front of a sensitive counterpuncher. Perhaps, unlike the first meeting, where Robert did not try to transfer the fight to the cover at all, tomorrow he will bet on takedowns, although one should not forget that in the middleweight division, Izzy has excellent statistics on protection against down transfers, which, in general, only spoiled Jan Blachowicz is a category higher.

However, even the pragmatism of Robert Whittaker’s actions does not guarantee him success in this fight. The fact is that Adesanya has a serious advantage in arm span, which will allow him to work effectively from a distance. In this case, will the contender be able to establish a firm work with a jab and low kicks?

Plus, due to the advantage in speed, including manual speed, Israel is tritely sharper than the opponent in exchanges, and in the first fight it sometimes seemed that he was simply a step or two ahead of the aggressor.

It’s not worth writing off the former champion ahead of time, but you need to look at things objectively – Adesanya is the favorite and has more solid trump cards.