Robert Whittaker was halfway up a sandhill on Christmas Day when he did the unthinkable.

He stopped.

Which made no sense.

Or not for Whittaker.

That unbreakable UFC fighter who, for five years, has devoted his Sundays to climbing those famed Wanda dunes in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire.

When an NRL team tackles Wanda, a dozen hills have been enough to see players collapse, even hospitalised.

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media_camera Former UFC middleweight champ Robert Whittaker breaks his silence. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Yet Whittaker, he runs 37.

Has never once quit on a dune, either.

Or not until last December.

“I just stopped,” he says. “Then stood there, asking ‘what the f... am I doing?’.

“It was Christmas Day.

“My family was somewhere else.

“That moment, it’s when everything crashed.”

Speaking now after a morning training session in his sprawling, home gym, Whittaker is walking The Saturday Telegraph through the shock breakdown — or “burn out” as he calls it — which occurred four months ago to the day.

A situation which saw this Sydney striker not only quit on that dune, or then withdraw from an upcoming UFC 248 bout against American Jared Cannonier, but disappear for days, then weeks, as rumours emerged about donating bone marrow for his daughter.

Which for the record, Whittaker says are completely false.

media_camera Robert Whittaker lost his title to Israel Adesanya in October. Picture: AAP/Michael Dodge

“All my kids were fine,” he says. “They are fine.”

Instead, the 29-year-old reveals his shock disappearance, which came only a dozen weeks after also losing his UFC middleweight title to New Zealand prodigy Israel Adesanya, is the result of a life that simply became too much.

Since late 2014, Whittaker has trained seven days a week.

With four, sometimes five sessions a day.

And sure, there have been breaks.

Like in 2019, when the fighter’s bowel twisted and collapsed so badly before a title fight with Kelvin Gastelum, three emergency surgeries were required.

Or a year before that, when a bout of chickenpox was severe enough to see his skin blister and scab.

But the crazier it got, Whittaker concedes, the harder “I bit down on my mouthguard”.

Always has.

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Relentless grind responsible for Bobby Knuckles not only fighting his way out of Menai Housing Commission, but those severe bouts of depression where, even into his teens, he could hide away for days, even weeks in his bedroom.

Indeed, when Whittaker switched to middleweight in 2014, having lost two of three previous bouts, the fighter agreed to go all in on a program that, orchestrated by his team, would not only win him seven straight against a Murderer’s Row of rivals, but UFC gold.

“I sacrificed everything,” Whittaker explains. “My team suggested several plans which I took to.

“And because it worked, I just kept at it.

“But you can’t keep doing that forever. You just can’t.”

Worse than the physical grind too, was the mental drain.

“I just wasn’t home,” continues the father-of-three who, along with wife Sofia, is also raising his younger brother and sister.

media_camera Whittaker running the Wanda sand dunes. Picture: Brett Costello media_camera Whittaker with his family. Picture: Brett Costello

“Because of my training schedule, I was missing birthdays, weddings, funerals …”

You missed funerals to train?

“I’d rather not go into it,” he concedes, “but, yeah.

“It was crazy.

“And every time I missed an event, or had to leave early, whenever I trained through Easter, or ran Wanda dunes on another Christmas Day, each one became like suffering a knock.

“Every time it was another knock, another knock, another knock …”

Until finally halfway up that dune on December 25, Whittaker said no more.

“I was completely burnt out,” he concedes.

“And walking back to the car afterwards, I told myself that what I was doing, it wasn’t normal.

“That I couldn’t keep going like that.

“So after arriving home, I got straight on the phone to my team, who had been at Wanda with me, and said ‘everything is paused until I work out how to stop feeling this way’.”

Incredibly, Whittaker admits to having felt “this way” since June, 2018, when he warred with, and beat, Cuban Yoel Romero for a second time, fighting almost 25 minutes with a broken right hand.

media_camera Robert Whittaker is Australia’s first UFC champion. Picture: Mike Roach/Zuffa LLC/Getty

“That second Romero fight, it took heaps out of me,” Whittaker concedes.

“And not just the fight itself, but the bullshit that surrounded it with my hand and so on.

“But you keep going.



“Even with the illnesses I had too, I was out of the Octagon but working twice as hard because I felt like I’d let a lot of people down.

“So while I wasn’t fighting, I never rested.”

Quizzed on why he never aired his concerns with coaches, family, anyone, the man who was then middleweight champ continues: “Because you can’t have doubts.

“You can’t say ‘hey, maybe I’m burnt out’.

“As soon as one fight is over, you have another title fight on the way.

“So the negative thoughts, you block them out.

“You bite down on your mouthguard and work through.

“And physically, we were training at an intellectual level, with loads and spreadsheets, lighter sessions that involved stretching.

media_camera Whittaker after his loss to Adesanya. Picture: AAP/Michael Dodge

“But again, mentally I was burnt out.

“And you can only do that so long before you wind up in a fight below your mental best.”

By which Whittaker refers to last October’s blockbuster against Adesanya, before almost 60,000 fans at Marvel Stadium.

“I just wasn’t myself,” he says.

“That’s the game though, you rock up and fight.

“But I know I can perform much better, and have performed much better.”

Which is why, come January, Whittaker withdrew, first, from all training, and then UFC 248, which is when rumours of that bone marrow donation first came to life.

Asked about the Australian’s absence around the same time, UFC president Dana White also said: “When you talk about somebody whose priorities are in the right place, who is completely selfless, and down to the core a good human being, that’s Robert Whittaker”.

Asked now about the donation rumour, Whittaker says: “I have no idea where that came from.

“During the break, I got off all social media to spend time with family

“So it was my old man who actually contacted me, explaining there was this crazy rumour going around.

media_camera Robert Whittaker beat Yoel Romero in two absolute wars. Picture: Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Getty

“And from there, it just got a life of its own.

“But my kids were all fine. They are fine.

“It was me who had the issue.”

And the quotes from White?

“I didn’t speak with Dana directly but the UFC knew why I had withdrawn,” he insists. “I love fighting, and it is something I’m good at.

“But you can’t keep fighting like I was trying to.”

Which is why in those Wanda dunes, Whittaker stopped.

A decision that has since seen him change up both his team and program, plus begin preparations for an Octagon return, while also giving Wanda Sundays back to family.

“And not having those sessions, it means I can do things Saturday night too,” he says. “Same as I’m now playing with the kids late into Sunday afternoon rather than being completely spent.

“The changes I’ve made, it really will change my life.

“Not training to exhaustion every day, I guess you can say I’m living.”