Quotes from Robert Whittaker

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.

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

I started training with Fabricio Itte with my wrestling and high performance; I started spending a lot more time with my head coach Henry Perez and also my grappling coach Alex Prates. Those three are my core team, and they've made hugely important changes and skill enhancements with my game.

Obviously wrestling is a core component of MMA. And among UFC fighters, my take-down defence is considered quite high.

I vigorously train in my jui jitsu and my wrestling, but my stand-up game gives me a huge advantage in defending take-downs.

Basically, I try to get across my striking, wrestling and grappling, and jujitsu. Every day, across the board, I try to get an equal amount of sessions throughout the week because I need to improve in all aspects of my fighting.

I actually think that wrestling is much harder than MMA, to be honest.

Everyone knows I like to fight injured. Half the fights I've taken, I've always been injured.

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.

Getting back to 100 per cent is one thing, but working at 100 per cent is something else entirely. And given one of my main goals has always been improving my skill set, to do that, I need to be working out at 100 per cent.

All my skill sets have grown; my experience in the Octagon has grown. I honestly just think I'm getting better with every fight.

I was born in New Zealand, and I was raised in Australia, and I'm very proud of that.

Everyone thinks Australia and New Zealand MMA fighters don't have that wrestling base, whereas a lot of Americans and other countries have, with them being able to do wrestling at high-school levels.

Although I didn't spend much time in New Zealand at all, I feel really privileged to have that Maori blood and link to my past. I got my tattoo out of respect to that.

I've been dropped on my head multiple times.

It is amazing to have the UFC to come here to Perth... it is great for Australian Mixed Martial Arts and great for the sport, and it is going to be great for Perth to have such a world-wide event, through pay-per-view, hosted here.

I train hard; I have the best coaching staff in the world... We always do the right things. I stick to the plan, and we get things done.

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.

Everyone needs an objective, and everyone needs a goal, and it was frustrating just kind of being at a standstill.

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

I'm very objective driven, so for me it's very important to know who I'm fighting, when I'm fighting, and roughly the direction I'm working in. It gives me that little extra push to do what I need to do to get the sessions, to work towards something.

It's an absolute honour and privilege to get out there and be an Australian headlining an Australian card. That's unreal; it really is.

The journey has moulded me into the person I am today. The journey of my mixed martial arts experience has been filled with ups and downs, but through that, I have come out a much better man.

I have great striking, really great striking, and I hit very hard.