Robert Whittaker could become a regular face at City Kickboxing after photos revealed “The Reaper” training alongside Israel Adesanya in New Zealand earlier this week.
Whittaker and Adesanya were rivals in the past, with “The Last Stylebender” taking the middleweight title off “Reaper” in 2019. Izzy would then knock back a Whittaker title challenge in 2022, making him 2-0 over the Australian fighter.
Now it sounds like the two may become teammates. In an interview with FOX Sports Australia, Whittaker discussed the visit to City Kickboxing and what it may mean for his future.
“If you would’ve asked me a few years ago if I ever seen this coming, the answer would’ve been, ‘Not in 100 years.’”
“Where we were with the team back home, one of my training partners got injured, a couple of the boys had other commitments … I sat down with the team, and Alex [Prates] was like, ‘We need some bodies. How are we gonna get them?’ We started looking around and then like a lightening bold we realized, ‘Mate, City Kickboxing is only a two and a half hour flight away, and they’ve got the bodies.’”
“It’s New Zealand, the place of my birth. Everything just started lining up, right? So, Alex reached out to Eugene [Bareman] and had a conversation. Me, Alex, and a couple of training partners came over here to test the waters to see if we get along … and we are getting along.”
There’s only so many options when it comes to MMA training in Australia and New Zealand. If you want a pool of top UFC talent, there’s no bigger pool than what City Kickboxing provides. We don’t know if it will provide Whittaker with the grappling chops he needs to get up to Khamzat Chimaev’s level, but you’d have to leave Oceania to get that.
As for how he likes training with Israel Adesanya?
“I don’t know if I hated him, but I’m pretty sure that 10 years ago I would’ve hit him with my car if I could have,” Whittaker said. “It was that sort of relationship. It’s funny, I just left his house. I was sitting on the couch with him working on his YouTube stuff. I’m still kind of reeling. It’s a funny world.”
“You’ve got to be open to his stuff and have an open mind to be able to work through that so everyone can get better. I think it’s a good path to growth. We get along. Even when I was just chilling with him before, and talking with him, you can see a lot of the common interests make that really easy.”
