UFC News: Whittaker and Adesanya set to headline UFC 243 in Melbourne, Australia
What’s the story
The UFC are set to announce a blockbuster main event for their October pay-per-view event UFC 243, in Melbourne, Australia.
The event will be held in the 56,000 capacity Marvel Stadium and will be headlined by a Middleweight title fight between Australian Robert Whittaker and New Zealand native Israel Adesanya.
UFC are expected to formally announce the match-up imminently.
In case you didn’t know…
Whittaker is the reigning UFC Middleweight champion but has been unable to defend his belt in over a year due to a serious abdominal injury he sustained in February.
In Whittaker’s absence, Israel Adesanya’s career has been in the ascendancy. Stylebender has collected a number of stunning victories over world-class opponents. None more impressive than a world-class performance against Kelvin Gastelum in April, which earned Adesanya the Middleweight Interim title.
The heart of the matter…
Australian newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, was the first to reveal the UFC’s plans for this event, which will go down as the biggest fight in Australian history.
Robert Whittaker provided the following statement to The Daily Telegraph…
“to have the opportunity to potentially fight in front of 60,000 people, I’m absolutely pumped. This fight, it’s going to be a milestone moment, not only for the Australian fight game but combat sports, period. MMA doesn’t often get these sorts of crowds. So to be one of the few fighters ever who gets to perform in front of an audience so large, it’s awesome.”
What’s next?
While the UFC is yet to formally announce the event, Whittaker’s comments on the event seem to all-but-confirm their plans.
Planning a show of this magnitude on foreign soil shows incredible ambition on the part of Dana White and his team. However, fight fans from New Zealand and Australia will surely relish the opportunity to see their heroes face off on the biggest stage of them all in what promises to be an absolute classic.