Reinier de Ridder picked up the largest win of his profession on Saturday when he took a hard-fought break up resolution over former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker in the principle occasion of UFC Battle Night time from Abu Dhabi.
Whittaker landed the primary punch he threw within the combat, seemingly bothering de Ridder together with his energy. That didn’t dissuade de Ridder from making an attempt to observe by on his normal sport plan of working inside and making an attempt to attain takedowns.
Whittaker escaped from the primary takedown try, a deep single-leg. As soon as they separated again to distance, Whittaker continued to attach with mixtures as he rushed in, opening a minimize over de Ridder’s left eye. The exchanges bolstered simply how huge of a niche existed between the 2 within the putting sport.
De Ridder proved to have two strong instruments on the ft, touchdown a number of good knees and jabs, each instruments he was capable of make the most of due to his appreciable top and attain benefits. This allowed de Ridder to get the combat to the bottom within the second spherical and land strong floor and pound after Whittaker seemed to be shaken up by a knee to the physique.
Whittaker regarded drained in his nook after the second spherical, and de Ridder landed a collection of fine punches early within the spherical earlier than Whittaker dropped him with a counter overhand proper. De Ridder was capable of survive the following flurry on the ground and get again to his ft, and shortly after, put Whittaker on his again once more, the place Whittaker was pressured to outlive strikes, positional adjustments and submission makes an attempt.
The ultimate two rounds had been a battle between de Ridder’s plan to push Whittaker into the cage and grind, and Whittaker taking advantage of the moments of separation by touchdown the higher important strikes.
After the ultimate bell, the combat appeared fully up within the air, with both man having a sound case for having completed sufficient to edge out a slender victory.
The ultimate scorecards learn 48-47, 47-48 and 48-47, with de Ridder taking the slender break up resolution.
“I do not wish to combat like this, man, this man was too robust,” de Ridder mentioned after the combat. “I wish to end a man within the first spherical. … I anticipated to take him down. He was so robust, so sturdy. Heavy f—ing fingers.”
Regardless of de Ridder’s needs to complete a much less robust opponent in his subsequent combat, he did counsel a combat with the winner of the UFC 319 championship bout between champ Dricus Du Plessis and challenger Khamzat Chimaev. De Ridder is now 4-0 within the UFC and a win over a former champion makes a superb case for a future title shot.
Whittaker admitted he “could not throw sufficient spanners within the works” of de Ridder’s sport plan and now has misplaced two straight and three of his 5 most up-to-date fights.