Robert Whittaker ‘an actual combat’ for Khamzat Chimaev

Joe Rogan thinks Robert Whittaker will current a severe check for Khamzat Chimaev.

Chimaev (13-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC) and former middleweight champion Whittaker (25-7 MMA, 16-5 UFC) will sq. off in a five-round headliner June 22 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The primary card will air on ABC.

Whittaker is coming off a powerful win over Paulo Costa at UFC 298. In the meantime, Chimaev hasn’t competed since outlasting former welterweight champ Kamaru Usman, who stepped in on 10 days’ discover to face “Borz” in a 185-pound bout at UFC 294.

“Whittaker vs. Khamzat Chimaev in Saudi Arabia, that one goes to be f*cking wild. That’s a wild one,” Rogan mentioned on a latest episode of “The Joe Rogan Expertise” with Joey Diaz. “That may be a wild combat. … Whittaker vs. Khamzat is legit. That’s an actual combat. That’s an actual combat for Khamzat as a result of Whittaker is an enormous dude. He’s an enormous, stable, beefy 185, former champion. Each guys began at 170, but it surely was too laborious to make the 170. That’s an actual 185er.”

As achieved as Usman is, Rogan doesn’t put an excessive amount of inventory in Chimaev’s win over him.

“They gave him Kamaru Usman and Kamaru didn’t have an opportunity to organize for that,” Rogan mentioned. “He had 10 days. That’s not sufficient time. I don’t know what sort of form he was in. He’s at all times in form, however famously, Kamaru has dangerous knees – like actual dangerous knees. So I don’t understand how laborious he was coaching or whether or not or not he prepares. Possibly he solely sacrifices his knees throughout coaching after which when he’s not coaching for a combat, he takes it straightforward, so he doesn’t keep in the identical form of form. I do know he was profitable within the third spherical.

“If that was a five-round combat, who is aware of how the f*ck that combat would have went. Clearly, Kamaru is world-championship caliber, the perfect welterweight of all time by most individuals’s accounts. It’s not sufficient time. It’s not sufficient time to get a man to organize for Khamzat. At the least we acquired an opportunity to see what Khamzat appears to be like like in opposition to a world-class, world championship-caliber fighter. This can be a huge one. That is Robert Whittaker with loads of time to organize – a man who’s simply as legit as they get (and) simply beat Paulo Costa. That’s a great combat. I like that.”