Robert Whittaker will need to drastically change his tactics to best Israel Adesanya in the rematch

In many fights, there is nothing wrong with being a low accuracy and high volume striker. When a fighter throws strikes, obviously the desired result is to land. If you have the cardiovascular conditioning to throw a ton of strikes, you can easily overcome missing even a majority of your attempts. For example, last weekend Sean Strickland landed only 46% of his significant strike attempts. Missing 54% of your attempts does not seem ideal, but he threw 330 strikes and therefore landed at a respectable 6.12 significant strikes per minute rate.

While this strategy often works in MMA, there are fighters who can easily use an opponent’s striking aggression to land devastating counters. One of these fighters is Israel Adesanya, and this skill was on full display in his first fight against Robert Whittaker back in 2019.

In the fight, Whittaker attempted 116 significant strikes compared to only 95 for Adesanya. However, Whittaker landed only 27% of those attempts and therefore netted only 32 landed significant strikes. While Whittaker was missing the vast majority of his attempts, Adesanya was able to score two knockdowns and finish the fight in the second round.

The 27% accuracy against Adesanya was the second lowest of Whittaker’s UFC career, but he has never been particularly accurate. For his UFC career, he has landed 41% of his significant strike attempts, which is below the average for a ranked UFC fighter (47%). He normally makes up for this by attempting 11.15 significant strikes per minute, which is above the average for a ranked fighter (9.17). This leaves him with a 4.68 significant strikes landed per minute rate.

On the other hand, Adesanya attempts only 7.84 significant strikes per minute. However, he has landed 50% of those attempts and therefore has a 3.94 per minute landing rate.

The accuracy allows Adesanya to land at a strong clip, and he has also managed to land with power. Despite the below average number of attempts, he still lands 0.89 knockdowns per 15 minutes of fight time. That rate ranks 27th among ranked UFC fighters.

If Whittaker comes into the rematch with the same reckless approach, he will likely suffer a similar fate. However, there are a variety of different avenues available to him this time around. In his three fights since falling against Adesanya, he has landed 49% of his attempts, which is well above his career accuracy.

In that same three-fight stretch against Darren Till, Jared Cannonier and Kelvin Gastelum, Whittaker was clearly making an effort to present a more well rounded offense. In his first 14 UFC fights, he attempted only seven takedowns and landed four. In his last three fights, he landed six takedowns and attempted 22. He also held control positions for nearly 14% of his cage time compared to only 7.57% in his first 14.

It is hard for a fighter to change, which means Adesanya should remain the favorite in this fight. He will have plenty of opportunities to avoid, counter and land power strikes. However, Whittaker does have the skillset to present an entirely different look, and that makes this rematch very interesting.