Robert Whittaker joins the UFC Post Show after defeating Ikram Aliskerov at #UFCSaudiArabia. ✓ For more UFC, sign up for …
just like a video game for Robert Whitaker tonight made making it look so easy what were your thoughts as you made the walk and then you got in there making it look so easy uh honestly I was just in my own head got to stay focused got to rip in picture my kids watching it at home picture of my wife waking them all up and bringing them out in my own head I had to you know have to leave by example have to show them how it’s done have to show them what not quitting looks like what digging in and and really having a go means they asked you after the fight Perth Australia not far away you’d be more than willing to be a backup for that championship fight there yeah definitely definitely I’m I’m in good health you know I exited this Hardy and um it’s in my home country how can I say no it’s around the corner is there is there a preference for you as to who you would rather face yeah I’ve mentioned it before I’d love to um run a back Rodriguez I feel like I let myself down in that fight more than he took it from me given I’m not taking anything away from him he beat me on the night and that’s half the game that’s most of the the game but um yeah I feel like I can do better you know I have one more question about Perth outside of dri’s dup amongst the middleweights that are available if you’re not the backup is there one that stands out to you that you would like to compete against in your home country It’s Tricky It’s tricky because I mentioned in a lot of interviews my only plan for is to go home to my kids and give them the holiday they uh kind of got cheaped out on last one cuz I took this fight pretty close after the last one so I want to take the kids away on holiday if I’m not going to going to back up for for such a prestigious title so go ahead Mike oh I was just going to say you know I wanted to ask you you had such a short amount of time to game plan for kralis scar off was there something that you picked up on in the short amount of time you had to research or were you just kind of going on the Fly uh a lot of it was on the Fly it’s um I leaned on my experience a lot good thing about our team and the way we conduct ourselves is that we we formulate game plans to take to our opponents we try to drag the fights into angles that play to our strengths and I’ve done that for a very long time so I watched I watched tape I watched where we were strong he’s very well-rounded tries to line up that right hand and I I prepared for that I prepared for that I mean obviously just staying on that time for just a second yes you went out there you got the job done and with respect to him you made it look easy but what were you expecting I was expecting a 25-minute dog fight like I I I trained so hard for this for this Camp you know I I was going to fight chamv he’s a dog of a fighter and uh I was expecting to take it into deep Waters with him and then that fell apart and R stepped in and I was willing to take it into deep Waters with him because they had a close pairing themselves so yeah I um I was I was ready for a slugfest I was ready to to bring the dog out and just bang on for 25 minutes but you know like I said I went out there hunting and and got it done early now as a fan of this sport I really want to know I’m curious what did Dana say to you he came over to the Octagon you guys shared some words what did he say uh you know between me and him but come on that’s not the answer we I don’t I don’t know but he he just said alisov is a scary guy nobody wanted to fight him nobody wants to fight him and uh you know in respect to Ram he stepped in and um yeah he was he was camping and he he was ready to fight last week but he still stepped in against me and you know there’s a reason why I was the previous middleweight champion and why I’m ranked number three there’s a reason there’s a level and I said it well I got to ask you you know you said you were doing this on the Fly not really having a game plan did you did you want to come out hot and kind of stun him cuz for me I was anticipating you to maybe make some reads in the first round try to drag him into deep water cuz you’ve been in so many main events you’ve been in title fights you fought 25 minutes from Pillar To Post it surprised me that you came out so hot was that something that you wanted to do um so no there definitely was a game plan like a loose one it was like get behind the jab draw out his right hand don’t rush like be patient use your full skill set like it’s a very loose game plan but you know if you stick to it good things happen right and uh much like it was going to be for chamay we were going to take the fight to him like much like it was with Costa as well I was going to take the fight to him I said I was going to be the Hunter and I I meant that so I went into this fight being the hunter understanding that he was preparing for a three round fight I’m I Was preparing for a five round fight and I wanted to be hot for five rounds 25 minutes I was going to take the fight with to him and and and try and hurt him the entire time first of all I’ve got to compliment you because this week when we said you know how important is it to become a champion again you said I’m not obsessing over that all I think about is being the best fighter possible that’s why you’re able to take on challenges like IKR scar off on very short notice you proved tonight you are still one of the very best in the world talk to me about Perth talk to me about being the backup fighter and who would you rather fight out of them two and again another question who do you think wins that fight okay um yeah like Perth is around the corner for me like it would be silly for me not to be a backup Fighter um in that regard especially with the win that I had tonight and the shape that I’m in so uh it just makes logical sense for me I’d like to fight drick run back of driers cuz I feel like I let myself down there you know um I’d like to run that back but is he still on the list as well so so either either and to be honest that’s that’s a hard fight I’m curious to see how I he has addressed the the pressure that Shawn put on him and had such success with it because you know drias is going to do that dricus did that to sha awkwardly and beat sha that way so you can only assume that he’s gone to do it to Izzy Izzy taking some time off maybe a good thing maybe we see a different version of it hard to say but yeah when you say Perth is around the corner I’m thinking like LA to San Diego which is 2 hours how far away is perf uh yeah it’s not that corner like 5 hours on a plane yeah 5 hours so it’s like the corner way the other end of the street it’s in the same country it’s in the vicinity it’s like LA to New York La there you go for Americans for for somebody from the UK that was pretty good shortest flight we’ll get back there you go thank you so much it was so fun watching you I told you I couldn’t wait to see a fight and you put on quite a show tonight for the first ever UFC event in Saudi Arabia I hope you had as good a time this week here as we did uh yeah it was great to be a part of this to be a part of History to seal the show the way I did I’m I’m truly bless you know thank you very much all right Robert Whitaker champ [Applause] [Music]