Whittaker pulls out of fight as Adesanya prevails at UFC 234

Vannata wins by submission

MELBOURNE, Australia, Feb 10, (AP): Robert Whittaker provided most of the early drama at UFC 234 in Australia and Israel Adesanya quite a lot at the end.

About eight hours before their scheduled fight, Australia’s UFC middleweight champion Whittaker withdrew from his championship defense against Kelvin Gastelum because of a serious abdominal injury and subsequent emergency surgery due to a perforated hernia.

That moved up the highly anticipated No. 1 contender match between rising New Zealand star Adesanya and Brazilian veteran Anderson Silva (349) to the main event on the sold-out Rod Laver Arena card.

In an evenly matched fight over the lightweight bout between American Lando Vannata and Brazilian Marcos Mariano, which Vannata won by submission near the end of the first round. Vannata improved to 10-3, two by no contest, while Mariano fell to 6-5.

UFC president Dana White said the 28-year-old New Zealand-born Whittaker, who has a record of 20-4, became ill Saturday night and complained of pain in his abdomen before being diagnosed at a hospital with a hernia. White said Whittaker could have died if he went into the ring with such an injury. In a later statement, UFC said Whittaker had undergone emergency surgery due to a “severe abdominal injury.”

Whittaker’s manager Titus Day said Whittaker first reported some issues around 6 pm on Saturday.

“Rob said he was a bit bloated and a little bit tired which is not uncommon when you are going through the process they are going through, reloading and putting some food back in your body,” Day told Australian Associated Press.

“Then about 10 o’clock we got a call from (Whittaker’s wife) Sofia saying he’s got some bad stomach cramps and he’s in quite a lot of pain and can’t sleep ... it got to the stage at about three in the morning where he was taken to hospital.”

Gastelum tweeted with “much sorrow” that the fight was off.

“I wish @robwhittakermma a speedy recovery champ! Get well soon!”

Tickets for the 15,000-seat arena sold out in eight minutes. UFC has offered full refunds due to the cancellation of the main bout.

It marks the second time Whittaker has been forced to withdraw from a scheduled title fight in Australia. Injuries kept him from fighting Luke Rockhold at UFC 221 in Perth last year.

Earlier this week, White had said the winners of the Whittaker-Gastelum and Adesanya-Silva fights would meet later this year.

Whittaker