The Bottom Line: Put Up or Shut Up

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This shapes up to be a year with plenty of title rematches in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Israel Adesanya-Robert Whittaker takes place in the UFC 271 main event on Saturday in Houston, while Aljamain Sterling-Petr Yan and Julianna Pena-Amanda Nunes are already confirmed. Valentina Shevchenko seems likely to rematch Jessica Andrade and/or Katlyn Chookagian, with Deiveson Figueiredo-Brandon Moreno 4 at least under consideration. Alexander Volkanovski-Max Holloway 3 has been deferred in favor of Volkanovski-Chan Sung Jung, but few if any will be surprised should the fight take place for the featherweight title later in the year.

Ideally, major rematches would come about principally when there is significant reason to believe the fight might go differently the second time around and significant demand to discover if that perception is reality, like Junior dos Santos-Cain Velasquez or Anderson Silva-Chael Sonnen. In practice, rematches often occur under less-than-perfect circumstances.

Shevchenko has cleaned out her division, leaving few fresh challengers. Sterling-Yan was necessitated by the unfortunate finish to their first fight. The men’s flyweight division has struggled since its inception to put together enough depth to provide compelling new challengers on a regular basis. Figueiredo and Moreno have produced memorable fights, but it’s hard to imagine there would be consideration of having them fight four consecutive times if there was widespread demand for Askar Askarov or Alexandre Pantoja to get a title shot. Pena-Nunes, on the other hand, is the classic example of the rematch strongly called for by the result of the first fight. Pena won decisively in a shocking upset, and she’ll have the chance to prove she can do it again.

What about Adesanya and Whittaker? They have firmly established themselves as the top two fighters in their division, and Whittaker has earned the rematch with three quality wins since the first fight. Certainly no one will quibble with the bout; the question is just how much excitement surrounds the fight, and that largely depends on how much reason one sees to think it will go differently the second time. The case Whittaker has made—and it’s a convincing one—centers on his approach to the first fight. Whittaker has said he went into the fight worked up about the trash talk that preceded it, and that affected the fight significantly. That might read like simple excuse making, except Whittaker did fight in a different fashion than he typically does and that atypical approach didn’t benefit him over the course of the first fight.

Whittaker has never been defined by his power. He was a welterweight who moved up in weight and found greater success by utilizing his speed, athleticism and technique. Yet against Adesanya, he aggressively winged power shots time and time again, looking for the big knockout. That type of approach can certainly work, but it was doubly counterproductive against Adesanya. It wasn’t Whittaker’s type of fight, and because Adesanya with his striking experience and superb reflexes is one of the last fighters you want to allow to coolly counter telegraphed power punches.

That’s exactly what happened in the first fight. The two biggest shots Adesanya landed were counters to Whittaker’s aggression. At the end of the first round, Adesanya knocked down and rocked Whittaker with a counter right after he threw a wild overhand. The punch that set up the finish in the second was even more instructive: Whittaker threw a two-punch combination, with the first punch landing hard and the second missing, then got greedy looking for a delayed third punch that never got off because Adesanya dropped him in the interim. Whittaker’s approach to the first fight set up his downfall, and luckily for the Australian, a change in approach would mean getting closer to his usual style rather than moving away from it.

There is of course a major problem even if Whittaker makes a successful course correction for the rematch with Adesanya: He still has to beat one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the sport. Whittaker even with the optimal approach and on top of his game just might not be good enough to unseat Adesanya. “The Last Stylebender” showed vulnerability against Jan Blachowicz to a bigger, stronger opponent who could utilize his wrestling. That’s why some think Khamzat Chimaev might be able to successfully implement a similar game plan. Whittaker is a completely different type of fighter. He’s not going to exploit a vulnerability; he needs to instead prove he’s right at Adesanya’s level. It seems likely we’ll know one way or another after UFC 271.