Kelvin Gastelum fick förra månaden en del uppmärksamhet när han påstod att mellanviktsmästaren Robert Whittaker har varit med om alldeles för många ’krig’ genom åren och tagit mycket stryk, samt att de senaste mötena med Yoel Romero ska ha varit vändpunkten i hans karrär.
Whittaker har nu svarat på detta och håller inte med om påståendena.
Via ’MMAFighting’:
I’d like to think that I’m one of the few guys who hasn’t been in a lot of wars. I haven’t been hit that much. My last couple fights have been pretty hard, but look at the opponents and the caliber I’m going up against.
I think he’s telling himself that to make himself feel better. Because there are some bad guys out there that couldn’t put me away, that couldn’t touch me, and I walked through them.
Whittaker kommer dock inte låta Gastelums uttalanden påverka honom i den kommande säsongen av The Ultimate Fighter.
What am I going to do, walk up to him and say ‘what are you saying about me? To be honest, on the show, in regards to that, me and him, we stayed on each other, we were very civil, he was very respectful to me, and after that I showed that back to him. You show respect to me and I give respect to you. It wasn’t fun being around an opponent that whole amount of time, especially when you’re going to fight him eventually, but it is what it is.
De två möter varandra i matchen om bältet i finalen av TUF 28 som kommer att bli av under UFC 231 eller UFC 232 i december.
