Getty
UFC middleweight Robert Whittaker finally revealed the real reason the 29-year-old former champion pulled out of his previously scheduled fight against Jared Cannonier, and it has nothing to do with the wild rumors about one of Whittaker’s children needing a bone marrow transplant.
Despite ESPN’s Ariel Helwani’s report that the New Zealander had pulled out of the Mar. 7 event for “undisclosed personal reasons”, rumors began to swirl soon after the report that Whittaker had pulled out of the fight so he could “donate bone marrow to his sick daughter” as reported by Sport Bible and many other outlets. But Whittaker candidly revealed to Daily Telegraph recently that the plain truth of the matter was he was “burned out” from living the life of an elite UFC fighter.
“All my kids were fine,” Whittaker said. “They are fine.”
Whittaker Not Sure How Rumor Got Started
Whittaker said he didn’t know where the rumor came from or how it got started. However, he said UFC officials knew the real reason he was pulling out of the event, something that suggests he isn’t sure why UFC president Dana White didn’t squash the rumor when given the chance.
In fact, White seemed to confirm it in an interview with Submission Radio.
“When you talk about somebody whose priorities are in the right place, who is completely selfless, and down to the core a good human being, that’s Robert Whittaker,” White said.
White even went so far as to get all choked up over the matter.
But “Bobby Knuckles” isn’t sure how or why that stuff happened.
“I didn’t speak with Dana directly but the UFC knew why I had withdrawn,” Whittaker said. “I love fighting, and it is something I’m good at. But you can’t keep fighting like I was trying to.”
Whittaker Needed a Break from Grueling Training Schedule
Despite the miscommunication, Whittaker’s revealing interview with Daily Telegraph set the record straight. Whittaker describes a situation where he was missing too much of life’s most important moments, including “birthdays, weddings, funeral” because of his grueling training scheduled that never seemed to end.
On top of that, Whittaker said even his so-called rest days had become part of the daily grind by featuring “intellectual” training with “loads and spreadsheets”, and that his 25-minute war against middleweight terror Yoel Romero back in June 2018 at UFC 225 is a fight from which he had never fully recovered.
“That second Romero fight, it took heaps out of me,” Whittaker said.
Whittaker Planning UFC Return
Whittaker said he’s made the proper changes to his team and training regimen, and he’s already preparing for his UFC return.
The first-ever UFC champion from Australia definitely expects to return to the UFC. He’s changed his training approach now so that he never reaches the point of burnout again.
There’s no doubt that Whittaker loves being a UFC fighter, but he also wants to experience the other great things about his life, too.
“Not training to exhaustion every day, I guess you can say I’m living,” Whittaker said.