It’s been four months since Robert Whittaker had his bottom teeth mangled by Khamzat Chimaev in Abu Dhabi, and now “The Reaper” is angling for a slightly less violent opponent for his next fight.
Whittaker was on a solid run before running into “Borz,” with wins over Paulo Costa and Ikram Aliskerov. A win over Chimaev would have put him in position for another title shot … but that didn’t work out for him. Now he’s hoping to reestablish himself in the contender’s circle by taking on former middleweight champion Sean Strickland.
“I think Strickland makes a good argument to have because I feel like we’ve both been in that top sort of pond for a while, circling each other,” Whittaker told Anthony Smith. “For whatever reason, we haven’t been matched up, but we’ve both been in proximity for a while. It’s most likely the fight to make. I’m excited by that fight.”
“I look at his style, and I find it curious. I find it exciting to try and work out. He’s a tough dude.”
Sean Strickland is coming off a lackluster decision loss to current 185 pound champ Dricus Du Plessis at the start of February, and may have some serious gym drama to sort out before he can compete again. So it may be a while before he’s available to fight. That’s cool with Whittaker, who is eyeing the summer for a return.
“I’ve just been working on some things, working on some new skill sets,” he said of his timeline. “But I wanna come back this year in June. That’s when I wanna put my hand up to fight because it gives me a good amount of time to just continue doing what I’m doing, but also ease into a camp properly and come in my best self.”
Whittaker had a busy 2024, fighting three times over the year. Considering what happened to his jaw in his last fight, it’s unsurprising his output would be slowed. Let’s hope those bottom teeth aren’t a liability moving forward, but if they are there isn’t a better fighter to call out than the striking-centric Strickland.
