We could be six months away from watching the unification bout between the UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker, and the new interim champion Israel Adesanya, but the tension and anticipation is already building.

There has already been a bit of back and forth between the two (which you can see here and here) and although Whittaker doesn’t usually do much talking before a fight, he has guaranteed it will be a short night when he does meet Adesanya. As the Aussie favourite told Submission Radio (as transcribed by The Mac Life).

“Now, I’m not saying that Adesanya is an easy fight for me. I think stylistically he matches up much better with my own style. Stylistically, I always wanted to fight Adesanya. Gastelum is just a keg. He’s a keg. When I was watching him fight Adesanya, that’s the fight that I was expecting when I was gonna fight Gastelum. Like, that’s the fight I had prepped for twelve weeks, and like, that’s the fight I had in mind when I was almost gonna fight him in Melbourne. And I’m happy, I’m very happy Adesanya had that fight.”

Whittaker is adamant that his fight with Adesanya won’t be a war though.

“It won’t be a war. Not with me and him. It’s gonna be short and sweet, brother, trust me. I guarantee you, I guarantee you.”

The 28 year old has often been accused of being too nice in the past and not responding to his opponents’ trash talking. Whittaker says this isn’t the case though. He just doesn’t care.

“It might be Australian culture, because I have thick skin. It takes a lot to get under my skin, and to be fair, I honestly don’t care. I just don’t care. People think I’m the nice guy, and it’s like, I’m not being nice, I just don’t care. Like, what you’re saying, that doesn’t faze me, cause I don’t think about it. I don’t think about you when I go home, I don’t think about you ever. Like, ever. And like, obviously now I got in trouble, like, UFC want me to do more things and different reporters and journos try to push the fight and they try to push tension and create a rise out of me, but the thing is, I just don’t care. Like, you sell the fight. Yeah, I’ll rock up and put it on you. It doesn’t matter.”

UFC President Dana White has suggested that this fight will go down in a stadium in Australia, around September time.

Who do you think will get the hand raised, when they meet?

See also:

Robert Whittaker On A Fight With Jon Jones: ‘That’s A Great Fight’