B Knuckles: Romero can do all the PEDs he wants it won’t help

Robert ‘Call Me Bobby Knuckles if you Want To’ Whittaker appeared recently on Submission Radio, and discussed his fight vs. Yoel Romero for the UFC Interim middleweight championship in the co-main event of UFC 213 on July 8, 2017 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. If you only love mad trash talk, stop reading now; if you value strength, honor, and character, read on.

I see myself matching up pretty well,” he said. “Before he gets to me to do his wrestling he’s gotta get past my hands and feet, but he’s a tough dude in saying that. He’s very tough dude, he’s got a really tight skillset, and like you said, he’s been competing at the highest level for years. So it’s gonna be a really tough fight.

I’m doing the same things [in training] I always do. I train all aspects of my craft. I train my Jiu Jitsu, my wrestling, my striking and I’m always trying to better myself. And it’s not until I fight Yoel Romero that I’ll see where I have to grow, where I need to learn and what I need to do better. That’s why this fight is such a good fight for my career, because it’s such a high-level fight to have now.

If he wins, Whittaker will become the first Australian to hold a UFC belt. The fighter wears his country on his chest, literally.

To represent Australia is the highest honor, you know, it really is for me,” he said. “It’s the pinnacle of fighting. And if I can get a belt in the process, it’s just, I love it.

“I am an Australian fighter and I conduct myself in a way that I hope makes everyone proud and makes the fans understand who I am. As long as I’m conducting myself honorably, everything will fall into place.

Whittaker is coming off a huge win over ‘Jacare Souza’ at UFC on FOX 24 in April.

It gave me confidence in my training more than anything else,” said Whittaker. “It gave me confidence in the program, it gave me confidence in what I do. You know, I always knew I could beat everyone in the division. I know I have the power to knock people out, I know I have the speed to get to them to land my hands on them, but it’s just the method to do, to train and how you do things. And that fight, every win to be honest, every win I have strengthens my resolve that I’m doing X, Y, Z correctly – you know, this is my method, this is how we do things and we’re doing them right.

The hardcore fanbase bestowed the nickname Bobby Knuckles on Whittaker, something he has rolled with.

People nickname me all they want, at least it’s positive,” he replied. “You know what I mean? It could be so much worse, but I’m not going to make it a fight name of mine, but if people wanna nickname me then I can’t stop them. What am I gonna do, go around telling people off? [laughs] They’ll probably smash me.

They probably won’t.

Division middleweight champion Michael Bisping is the poster child for suffering from PEDs in MMA. The Count has been KOed only twice, by Dan Henderson and Vitor Belfort, both of whom were on Testosterone Replacement Therapy. In the past 17 fights, Bisping has lost just six times, to Henderson and Belfort, to Chael Sonnen who was on TRT, to Wanderlei Silva who was suspended for years after running from a PED test, and to Tim Kennedy and Luke Rockhold. Only the last two are clean. As such, Bisping has relentless excoriated Romero over a failed 2015 anti-doping test.

By contrast, Whittaker laughed it off.

Nah, it’s like, whatever,” said a laughing Whittaker. “It is what it is. He can do whatever he wants. It’s not gonna help him [more laughter].

Probably three years ago I was speaking to someone and they said, ‘You can be champ. That should be the lowest of your ambitions.’ And it is. Being champ is just one stepping stone for me. I wanna be the best fighter in the world. I wanna be written down as one of the fighters in history, and if it comes with the belt, great. But my goal is set and it’s just a lot of hard work to get there.

Mystic Whittaker closed with a prediction on how Romero will fall.

I think I’m gonna hit him too much,” he replied. “And I think it’s just gonna be too much, too much damage and I think he’s just gonna fall like everyone else.