Robert Whittaker finds his range and pieces Marvin Vettori up at UFC Paris
The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to us today, September 3, 2022, for UFC Paris, marking the promotions first ever event in France, going down live from the Accor Arena.
Headlining the event was a clash of top ranked heavyweight contenders, as former interim champion and no. 1 ranked Ciryl Gane (10-1) faced off with no. 3 ranked Tai Tuivasa (14-3) in the main event of the evening.
Gane was coming off his unanimous decision defeat to UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou, a fight he nearly won, while Tuivasa came into the bout having won his last five-straight, all five coming via knockout.
Our co-main event of the evening came in the middleweight division between another pair of ranked contenders in no. 1 ranked former champion Robert Whittaker (23-6) and former title challenger, no. 2 ranked Marvin Vettori (18-5-1).
Whittaker is 11-2 as a middleweight, only losing to current champion Israel Adesanya, a man many people believe Whittaker defeated in their rematch. Vettori on the other hand has gone 7-2-1 since 2017, again, only losing to Adesanya in both defeats.
This was truly a brilliant job of matchmaking.
Continue reading to see how this middleweight co-main event went down:
Official Result: Robert Whittaker def. Marvin Vettori via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
Both men look very sharp throughout the first five minutes, but Whittaker begins to piece Vettori up in the second. He lands a nice combination with his hands earlier on in it, and stuns Vettori with a head kick as well.
The speed advantage goes to the former champion, and it appears he has more tools in his striking arsenal, as many of us expected.
Whittaker really finds his timing in the third and final round, as he lands another vicious head kick and hurts Vettori badly with it. He followed up with some heavy punches and continued to land heavy punches throughout the round.
But, Vettori has always demonstrated incredible durability, it’s not really a surprise. He took Paulo Costa’s best shots up at 205 lbs for instance. Nonetheless, this is the sixth defeat of his career, and his sixth defeat via decision.
Robert Whittaker is now 4-1 in his last five, and a third fight with Adesanya, after Adesanya has his third fight with Alex Pereira (assuming he wins), seems all that more inevitable.
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