Robert Whittaker

I like eating. I like food.

Happiness is a key to my success, and my family is a root of that.

I think the mental preparation isn't something that you can work on in one large sum. It has to be a collective collaboration of doing little things for your mental state constantly throughout the prep and managing your life outside the Octagon, managing your life in transit to the Octagon, managing your life once you get to training.

Pretty much all my mother's side is Kiwi, and we have a strong Maori heritage.

Fighting is fighting. Family life is family life. I need a distinct barrier between the two. Obviously, my family dictate how I'm feeling and my head space. But work's work.

Who am I to tell people what to do with their own careers and how they're doing?

Fighting on home soil is always a dream come true, and I'd love to unify the title here in Australia.

The reason I fight is to provide for my family, and I cannot risk having that taken away.

I have faith in my wrestling, faith in my grappling, and faith in my striking.

I never expected to do what I can, but with my coaching staff and my training and coming to terms with my own ability and my own talent and realizing the potential that there is, I've decided that I want to make a run for it. I'm training, and I'm fighting for a title.

Moving to middleweight had a massive impact on my training regime and my mental space leading into everyday training. I was training for the fight, not just trying to burn calories and get my weight down. It was a big mental relief there.

My standard training week, there's a lot of training in there. I have a high-performance coach who manages these spreadsheets of mine, manages my sessions and my loads. It's a very complicated process, and he puts me through about 22 sessions a week.