Whittaker v Adesanya

For MMA fans in NZ and Australia, the fight between Israel Adesanya and Robert Whittaker is about as big as it gets. It’s for the undisputed UFC middleweight title and sees Whittaker, who was born in NZ but grew up in Australia taking on Adesanya, a Nigerian born man who has adopted NZ as his home. This is the biggest fight to affect this corner of the globe.

I see Adesanya winning this fight and I will explain why:

Striking – Adesanya has elite level striking with the ability to look like he is jogging while everyone else is sprinting. When watching him fight in kickboxing and boxing tournaments here in NZ, it was easy to see that he was just on another level. His distancing is inch perfect and allows him to stay just out of range of his opponents strikes. Then there is his timing. He has the ability to land shots while his opponent is coming in or going out – shots that don’t seem that hard, but they have tremendous effect. Whittaker on the other hand has very under rated striking, even with the moniker Bobby Knuckles. His striking is not classic but is very effective, he seems to be more of a counter fighter, waiting for his opponent to throw then uses head movement and footwork to try and land the counter. Whittaker has a lot of power and when he hits something, it stays hit. Against Adesanya though, he is going to have to get inside a taller fighter with a longer reach to land his shots. Keeping in mind that the taller fighter is also a more skilled striker with deadly accuracy. Whittaker’s power does manage to even things up a little though. Overall however, the edge in striking goes to Adesanya.

Wrestling: This is where Whittaker has a massive advantage as he’s qualified for the Olympics for Australia in wrestling. However, judging on his previous fights, his wrestling has been used mostly to keep the fight on the feet or get off the ground and then back to his feet. Which he does very well. For example, Jacare had his back and he managed to safely get back to his and got out of trouble (which is a lot easier said than done as Jacare is one of the best grapplers in history). Then he managed to keep it standing for most of his two fights against Yoel Romero which is a massive statement due to Romero being one of the best wrestlers of all time. Adesanya has managed to do well so far against wrestlers and that is mainly due to his reach and striking, making it very hard for people to get hold of him. Once people have got hold of him, he has done rather well to defend the takedowns and make space to get back to striking. For Whittaker to use his wrestling advantage he would have to change his style that he has used up until now, which is using his wrestling to keep the fight standing.

On the ground: Whittaker has a very good ground game, demonstrating a strong ability to avoid submissions and get back to his feet. Then, when he has thrown some punches on the ground, he has shown devastating ground and pound. However, Whittaker often opts to stay on his feet. Adesanya has been on the mat a couple of times and showed an underrated ground game and used his long thin legs to throw up triangles and arm bars. By doing that, he managed to stifle his opponent’s offence and manged to survive and get back to where he wants to be, on his feet. If Whittaker gets on top on the ground Adesanya is in for a long night as he has the advantage on the ground.

Going through the individual areas you can see that Whittaker has a better all-round game and his wresting and grappling pose significant threats. So, why do I have Adesanya as the favourite going into this fight? That is because in all of Whittaker’s fights, he has kept it standing and used his striking, if he gets taken down, he uses his skills to get to his feet and get back to striking. For Whittaker to be an offensive wrestler in this fight he is going to have to change his style, the style that got him the title. Why would you change a winning formula? For Whittaker to change the formula it would give Adesanya the advantage as Adesanya will not be changing a thing. Adesanya will use his defensive wrestling to keep the fight standing where he has the advantage in striking. Adesanya will use his freakish timing and distance to pick Whittaker apart as Whittaker loads up the big shots. As both fighters have shown a history of keeping fights standing this gives Adesanya the advantage and is the favourite in this fight. However, it must be said that he is only favourite by a small amount and it will only take one punch from Whittaker to change the course of events. No matter what, it will be one of the biggest fights over this side of the world and will be good to have local people excited about a fight with local lads fighting.

Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor