ROBERT WHITTAKER UFC’S Mr Nice Guy Is Flying the Flag Down Under

SPORTSMAN OF THE YEAR IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE STAR ROBERT WHITTAKER UFC’s Mr Nice Guy is flying the flag Down Under. WORDS JACK PHILLIPS ILLUSTRATION NIGEL BUCHANAN GQA0818p150 150 31/10/18 11:21 am MEN YEAR “It wasn’t my intention to become a role model for mixed martial arts,” he says coyly. “But I’m happy the shoe fits. If I could improve the conditions for athletes coming up, as well as for mixed martial arts as a sport in this country, all the better.” Intended or not, he is an Australian fighting role model. The UFC has travelled to he scene is an unassuming Australia 12 times over the years – no mean one. A man crouches in the feat for a country with 300 million fewer corner of a Jiu-Jitsu gym people than the US – and Australia holds the stretching, while a group of record for the highest attendance at any UFC Whittaker’s manager, Henry Perez, has men and women of various event. That’s 56,214 to be exact, at been in his corner since he was a fluffy ages, wearing crisp white training uniforms, Melbourne’s Etihad Stadium in 2015 when ‘chubby’ kid. Head coach, Fabricio Itte, has Tmingle, seemingly unaware of his existence. outsider Holly Holm spectacularly dethroned helped develop Whittaker’s wrestling He twists one way stretching out his groin, then undefeated Ronda Rousey. through his gym, Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Smeaton bends his arm up and back so his elbow points Whittaker’s journey to the top hasn’t been Grange, for nearly eight years. And it’s this straight into the air before breathing out hard easy. When we first interviewed him in 2015 gym, this ‘home-from-home’ as the champ and folding himself flat against the blue mats he sat 15th in the middleweight rankings. calls it, where GQ finds itself watching on the floor. A basketball rolls past; his eyes Now, with belt in hand, his last five fights are Whittaker playing a warm-up game of follow until it stops by the door. indicative of just how hard it is to win at the basketball. A familiar scene for the fighter, The relaxed 27-year-old, comprised of highest level. more after-school club than ludus. 84kg of muscle, gristle and bone looks up and smiles. He makes eye contact with a girl perhaps 15 years his junior, they bumps fists as she walks past before he nonchalantly “This isn’t just a sport returns to the business of touching his toes. For an average onlooker, there’s nothing out of the ordinary going on here. Just one man, for me. It’s how I choose among many, getting ready to train. This image of Whittaker – easygoing, humble, warm – serves as an apt metaphor of to live my life.” both the man and the fighter. He may be the reigning UFC middleweight champion but Whittaker faced Rafael Natal in 2016 as an “If it ain’t broke, why fix it”, he laughs. the pomp and ceremony of the Las Vegas ring underdog; a fight he won by unanimous He may not have changed his training hasn’t changed this quietly spoken, proud decision. He took on, and subsequently beat much but Whittaker’s acknowledgment of father of three. “This isn’t just a sport for me,” Derek Brunson by TKO in the first round his place within the wider sport has evolved he tells GQ. “It’s how I choose to live my life.” later that year. Brazilian Ronaldo Souza came dramatically. The idea of ‘legacy’ comes up And live it he does. Kiwi-born Whittaker next, with Whittaker again defying the odds often. Perhaps this new obsession with represents Australia’s new and devout to win by knockout. His biggest test to date leaving a mark is financially driven? After all, relationship with the sport of mixed martial came in the form of Yoel Romero. Whittaker big-name UFC fighters command a pretty arts and his sharp rise to fame has followed fought the Cuban in 2017 to seize the penny for title bouts. (The controversial Irish that of the sport to which he belongs. Ever middleweight title for the first time, and then fighter Conor McGregor revealed he made since moving to Sydney as a youngster fought him again in June this year to retain it an eight-figure sum from his fight with he has dreamed of being recognised as the – making him responsible for two of Romero’s Degestani Khabib Nurmagomedov in world’s best. three career losses. October.) But chances are, this Australian Meanwhile UFC president Dana White For a man who has won 21 professional fighter’s dreams are more humble. has thrown his weight and cash behind UFC’s fights, knocked out nine of his opponents and “I’m pushing all-in on that dream and presence in this country, in part, due to what forced five more into submission, it’d be fair hoping to make something out of it,” he he calls a “tonne of up-and-coming talent” to assume he trains in some sort of gladiatorial remarks, before bounding off after a loose rising from the region. Whittaker represents ludus, full of Spartacus types, all sweaty, basketball. The odds are he’ll more than the best of that talent. bloody and angry. But in reality, Whittaker make something of it. n trains in an unremarkable gym with people you could mistake for office colleagues, in the company of those he calls family – even though they’re of no blood relation. (At least, not that type of blood relation.) MEN OF THE YEAR 2018 GQ.COM.AU 151 GQA0818p151 151 31/10/18 11:21 am.

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