Las Vegas — With a knockout victory against Nikita Krylov at UFC 329, former middleweight champ Robert Whittaker made a successful debut at light heavyweight.
While many have noted that Whittaker (27-9) appears undersized for his new weight class, “Everything that could go right, did go right,” he stated post-fight, speaking with media outlets including Cageside Press following the bout. “I can’t express to you how good I feel.”
Whittaker is well aware of the story of a middleweight coming off two losses “moving up to light heavyweight, and sliding into oblivion. And I didn’t want to be that guy.” Training extensively for the move up in weight, “The Reaper” split his training camp between City Kickboxing and Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. He also got to have his wife and two sons in the crowd for the first time on Saturday. “They finally saw what daddy does for work, I don’t just stay at home, sit down and play games.”
Krylov appeared to break his jaw at the end of the fight, and Whittaker admitted that “The Miner” was a “tough guy. I was tagging his jaw a lot.” Thankfully for Kyrlov, Whittaker didn’t get in any follow-up blows.
“I felt like I was catching that lead hand and right hand over the top a lot of times. Put in some work in the first round, really started putting in work in the second. The jaw can only take so much. I saw after that last shot that his jaw was gone. And yeah, just leave it there. I’m a good guy.”
With a win in his 205lb debut, Whittaker now finds himself in a wide-open light heavyweight division. Champ Carlos Ulberg is injured; Jamahal Hill has announced a heavyweight move, which fellow ex-champ Alex Pereira also recently made. The likes of Jiri Prochazka and Magomed Ankalaev remain.
“I feel like the division is a buffet,” opined Whittaker, after joking that his own kids were loving the buffets backstage. “I wanted someone ranked out of the gate. I think a lot of questions have been answered; I feel like there were a lot of doubters out there, there were a lot of people that had questions, a lot of people that wanted to see what the transition looked like, me going up. I think I silenced those guys and put my case forward.”
Watch the full UFC 329 post-fight press conference with Robert Whittaker above.
