Last night, news broke that UFC 213’s originally planned headliner – a bantamweight title fight between champ Cody Garbrandt and challenger TJ Dillashaw – had officially fallen through. With this news, it was announced that Amanda Nunes and Valentina Shevchenko’s women’s bantamweight title fight had been promoted to the main event spot, and that the new co-main event would see Yoel Romero and Robert Whittaker collide in an interim middleweight title fight.
Shortly after this news broke, Whittaker and Romero took to their respective social media channels to make short but sweet statements on the fight. See the two fighters reactions to the news below:
I have waited for this moment long enough! #ynuevo #ufc #mma #ufc213
A post shared by Yoel Romero (@yoelromeromma) on
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“I have waited for this moment long enough,” Romero said.
Time to bring it home @ufc #ufc213 #july8
A post shared by Robert Whittaker (@robwhittakermma) on
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“Time to bring it home,” Whittaker said.
Whittaker will enter this fight having most recently pummelled the streaking Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza to a career-changing TKO win. With this win, he improved his current streak to seven. Other highlights of his streak include knockouts of Clint Hester and Brad Tavares, decision defeats of Uriah Hall and Rafael Natal, and a TKO win over Derek Brunson.
Romero will enter this fight on an eight-fight streak, having not lost as a UFC fighter. His most recent win occurred back in November, when he knocked out Chris Weidman with a flying knee in a 2016 knockout of the year contender. This win was preceded by a decision defeat of Jacare, and stoppage wins over Lyoto Machida and Tim Kennedy.
Who do you think wins this Yoel Romero vs. Robert Whittaker interim middleweight title fight?
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 5/24/2017.