Skip to main content

How UFC 290 fight vs. Dricus Du Plessis fulfills Robert Whittaker's 'warrior spirit'

Robert Whittaker respects Dricus Du Plessis’ willingness to fight him at UFC 290.

Whittaker (24-6 MMA, 15-4 UFC) takes on Du Plessis (19-2 MMA, 5-0 UFC) at UFC 290 on July 8 from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Du Plessis is unbeaten in the UFC, a fresh face for middleweight champion Israel Adesanya, and has already created a storyline with “The Last Stylebender” to get his opportunity at gold. Du Plessis has admitted that taking the Whittaker fight wasn’t the smart choice, but he wants to cement himself as No. 1 contender.

“I think I read somewhere that he actually commented on that and saying, ‘I’m not here to do the smart thing, I’m here to fight,'” Whittaker said on his MMArcade Podcast. “That’s why I am so happy with this fight because, like, I will respect that and give you a fight with everything that I have. That is the game for me. That is the craft. That is fulfilling to me in my warrior spirit.”

Many, including Adesanya, don’t rate Du Plessis’ chances too high against Whittaker, but the former champion is excited for the challenge and knows he’ll be getting a game Du Plessis.

“From everything I’ve seen with Dricus, he seems like a straight-up fella,” Whittaker said. “He seems like a warrior. He’s got like a good warrior and honorable spirit about him. That really excites me. It excites me to have an opponent like that, an opponent that sees the craft for what it is for, sees what we are getting ourselves into, staring across the octagon together in the floor space of the arena. Knowing he’s like that just gave me electric tingles. I love it.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 290.



from MMA Junkie https://ift.tt/CW8nst6
via IFTTT

Popular posts from this blog

Henry Cejudo on what makes Jiri Prochazka dangerous: 'He's a rhythm fighter'

Henry Cejudo sees Jiri Prochazka ’s go-with-the-flow fighting style as a big threat. Former champion Prochazka (29-3-1 MMA, 3-0 UFC) meets Alex Pereira (8-2 MMA, 5-1 UFC) for the vacant light heavyweight title in the UFC 295 co-headliner Nov. 11 at Madison Square Garden in New York. Cejudo helped train Prochazka prior to his title fight against Glover Teixeira at UFC 275. Prochazka ended up submitting Teixeira late in Round 5 , in what was a back-and-forth barnburner. Cejudo recalls advising Prochazka to be tactical, but Prochazka ended up engaging in a wild brawl. “I’ve trained Jiri – Jiri’s come out here for a few weeks to train with me,” Cejudo said on his YouTube channel . “Jiri Prochazka, he’s a different style of fighting. There’s a belief in him that makes him dangerous, you know? The fact that he’s a fighter that literally goes off of rhythm – he’s a rhythm fighter. He’s a guy that’s going to go out there and use all the rhythm that he has in order to start getting his stri...

Video: Oli Thompson lands devastating first-round knockout punch on Aleksei Oleinik in Russia

Aleksei Oleinik returned to action for the first time since his UFC exit, but things did not go in his favor. In the main event of REN TV Fight Club at Dynamo Volleyball Arena in Moscow, Russia, Oleinik (60-17-1 MMA) faced fellow UFC veteran Oli Thompson in a heavyweight bout. The result was a violent finish that left Oleinik staring up at the lights. Thompson (21-16 MMA) unleashed a crushing right hand that sent Oleinik crashing to the canvas with 35 seconds remaining in the opening round. Check out video of the finish below (via Twitter ): Oli Thompson destroys Alexey Oleynik with a massive right hand in the first round pic.twitter.com/AdWy25dQxR — caposa (@Grabaka_Hitman) May 26, 2023 Thompson, 43, returned to the win column for the first time since 2020, snapping a four-fight losing skid. His last victory was also a first-round stoppage; a 23-second knockout of Szymon Bajor at Fight Exclusive Night 28 on June 13, 2020. Oleinik, 45, competed in his final UFC bout in Octo...

UFC's Ilia Topuria no longer interested in Paddy Pimblett: 'As a fighter we all know he's not worth anything'

MIAMI – Ilia Topuria has lost interest in a potential fight against Paddy Pimblett . After several shots at each other in interviews and on social media, a scuffle in a hotel lobby , and a post-fight callout in the octagon, Topuria said he is done trying to get a fight against Pimblett. Now highly ranked and with his sights on the UFC featherweight title, Topuria believes he’s past Pimblett and fighting him would be taking a step back. “Paddy, you know what happens with Paddy?” Topuria said in Spanish at a media day this past Saturday . “He’s a person that media attention wise, he’s big. But as a fighter we all know he’s not worth anything. He’s not even ranked. He hasn’t done anything. “So giving merit to a person that’s only where he is because he knows how to sell himself well, I don’t think that’s the right thing to do. We’re athletes. In the UFC, the difference between them and other organizations is that here what’s valued is the sport and Paddy, sporting wise, hasn’t achiev...