{"id":236433,"date":"2022-09-02T05:47:21","date_gmt":"2022-09-02T05:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=236433"},"modified":"2022-09-03T15:00:11","modified_gmt":"2022-09-03T15:00:11","slug":"proud-ufc-star-changed-the-game-in-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=236433","title":{"rendered":"'Proud' UFC star changed the game in Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

A decade ago, you'd be lucky to see an Australian on a UFC<\/a> card at all.<\/p>\n

Robert Whittaker<\/a> changed all of that.<\/p>\n

Since his debut in the sport's top promotion back in 2012, he went from reality TV winner, to scrappy welterweight, to one of the most dominant middleweights of all time.<\/p>\n

LIVE UPDATES:<\/strong> US Open day four action<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Chilling backstory to Aussie star's UFC quest<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Storm hit eight-year low against Eels<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Whittaker's now decade-long tenure brought him international recognition, title shots, gold belts and the respect of the entire MMA community.<\/p>\n

"I'd like to think I had an impact in the sport at the time," he told Wide World of Sports.<\/p>\n

"Definitely bringing a lot of light to MMA down under, as well as bringing the UFC and the spotlight to our country – which only threw more money into the sport, opening up more gyms, brought more eyes to the sport.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"I'm very proud of the effect and the impact that I had, I guess, leading the way."<\/p>\n

But he's far from alone anymore. There's Australian or Kiwi fighters on UFC cards every other week, it seems, while Alexander Volkanovski was recently crowned the pound-for-pound best fighter on the planet.<\/p>\n

"The world is just finally seeing 'wow, we have some high calibre athletes here'. Volk's the best in the world, pound-for-pound," Whittaker said.<\/p>\n

"And then Bam Bam [Tai Tuivasa], he's headlining this card now. Australian MMA is out of control, and I don't see it slowing down anytime soon."<\/p>\n

Whittaker was originally set to fight on the UFC's Singapore card in July, but an injury pushed that back – now he'll fight alongside fellow Australian Tai Tuivasa in Paris.<\/p>\n

\"UFC<\/p>\n

"All the skill sets I've been working on in camp since my last fight, I'm excited to try them," he said.<\/p>\n

When pressed on specifics, he jokes that it's "a lot of punching and kicking".<\/p>\n

"I'm just trying to get better, holistically. Every skill set across the board can be sharpened up," he added.<\/p>\n

A win here likely puts Whittaker in the frame for a trilogy title fight against Israel Adesanya, but the champ, having won both of their first two match-ups, has previously said he's not particularly interested in running that back again.<\/p>\n

And of course, the Australian has no doubts he could flip the script and win his title back.<\/p>\n

"I think I can," he said.<\/p>\n

"And you know what they say, third time's a charm."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A decade ago, you'd be lucky to see an Australian on a UFC card at all. Robert Whittaker changed all of that. Since his debut […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=236433"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":236435,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236433\/revisions\/236435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=236433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=236433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=236433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}