Whittaker wins fake title, but real glory

Robert Whittaker might have a made up belt, but there is no denying he’s one of the very best middleweights in the world.

It’s impossible to take Robert Whittaker’s new gold championship belt seriously. The situation in which he won it in – with champion Michael Bisping’s opponent being pulled from their UFC 213 headliner leading to an interim fight between Whittaker and Yoel Romero – is completely ridiculous.

But it is impossible not to recognize his incredible performance over Romero to become the No. 1 contender against a champion he should be the favorite over.

Romero held a 20-18 lead after two rounds on all three judge’s cards, but Whittaker showcased his solid boxing skills and handled his Olympian opponent over the last three rounds, particularly dominating the fourth and fifth rounds to close out the victory that was nowhere as close as the scorecard may have shown.

Whittaker has won eight straight fights, including his last seven as an undefeated middleweight fighter after previously toiling in Welterweight, where he came to the UFC as the winner of The Ultimate Fighter 16.

Now, Whittaker has something gold to hold around his waist until he enters the octagon against Bisping, who again, he should be considered a favorite over should they fight. But even despite Whittaker holding onto a made up interim middleweight championship belt, there will just have to be a wait-and-see if the UFC instead makes Bisping’s next title defense against George St-Pierre sometime in the fall instead of hosting the standard Champion vs. Champion unification immediately. But if the UFC wanted to have Bisping defend his belt against anybody other than GSP, he would have just fought on the UFC 213 card against either Whittaker or Romero. Instead, the Bisping vs. GSP fight was the first of three main events to fall out on the card, followed by Cody Garbrandt vs. TJ Dillashaw for the Bantamweight Title, and announced the day of the fight, Amanda Nunes vs. Valentina Shevchenko.

Romero vs. Whittaker for a made up title was the fourth option for the UFC, but at least it created a brand new star.

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Corey Johns

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You could say Corey was born to become a sports journalist. His father won a national championship coaching college soccer. His mother is a baseball fanatic who hasn't missed seeing an Orioles game since 1983 (literally, sometimes it's annoying). His great uncle was a big-time boxing promoter and his maternal grandfather was once a department head at the Baltimore Sun. Basically, sports and journalism run through his blood. He played just about every little league sports there was when he was a kid and was a multi-sport athlete in high school; even playing in the first-ever high school sanction Rugby game in the country. Eventually he retired from sports as an undefeated Maryland state Rugby champion as a high school senior. Perhaps lack of athletic talent has more to do with the retirement, but he will tell you that it more had to do with a great desire to jump right into media. Upon his graduation from University of Maryland, Baltimore County as a triple communications major, Corey started the So Much Sports network and has continued to grow his websites and continues to work to make them premier sports media outlets.

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