Robert Whittaker Reacts To Yoel Romero Trilogy Talk
Following Robert Whittaker’s controversial decision victory over Yoel Romero in their UFC 225 main event rematch this past weekend (June 9, 2018), UFC color commentator Joe Rogan asked Whittaker about a potential trilogy match between the two.
Whittaker, who also won the first fight which took place at UFC 213 last July, however, has shown little interest in once again doing battle with “The Soldier of God”:
“When Rogan asked me in the Octagon the other night, he said rubbermatch and for one, I have never heard of the term rubber match so he caught me off guard there,” Whittaker said on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “Second, I had just beat the boogeyman of the division twice back-to-back. I don’t think it’s how the division, UFC conducts business to get the champion to fight one guy, who on both occasions doesn’t make weight for a championship fight, back-to-back-to-back. Like, am I going to fight Yoel Romero forever?”
Aside from the decision, there was a bit of controversy prior to the bout as well given that Romero missed weight and while Whittaker admits that he could’ve taken his money and not fought, he said he had a lot of fans in attendance that he wasn’t going to let down:
“I had told other people that (wouldn’t fight if Yoel missed weight), but I was more trying to get my opponent to think about it and take a little more seriously. I’m a professional in all the things I do, and when I sign the contract and it says 185, I make sure I am 185,” he said.
“I’ll get in bright and early and make sure I am one of the first people on the scales. The thing is, I didn’t need to take the fight and I could have walked way with my purse money and not taken the fight,” explained Robert. “I had a right to do that. But the thing was I had a lot of fans here and Chicago was super pumped to see the main event and a lot of people bought the PPV to watch the rematch between me and Romero. At the end of the day I’m a fighter and I just told myself I would take this fight. Someone was going to get into a fight.”
Who would you like to see Whittaker take on next?
