UFC 271 on Feb. 12 at Toyota Center in Houston

It hasn't been a simple way back to a title went for previous UFC champion Robert Whittaker.

After he lost the middleweight title to Israel Adesanya in October 2019, Whittaker has returned raging with three straight choice successes over the division's strong competitors: Darren Till, Jared Cannonier and, most as of late, Kelvin Gastelum. UFC 271 live stream

His Fight of the Night headliner prevail upon Gastelum in April 2021 was a shutout on the appointed authorities' scorecards. After Adesanya protected his title against Marvin Vettori two months after the fact, obviously Whittaker was next.

At UFC 271 on Feb. 12 at Toyota Center in Houston, Whittaker (23-5 MMA, 14-3 UFC) challenges Adesanya (21-1 MMA, 10-1 UFC) in the headliner. After Adesanya took him out at UFC 243 to win the belt, Whittaker said he expected to roll out certain improvements, and it began by conceding his own self image might have disrupted the general flow.

Different adversaries have attempted (to get in my mind like Adesanya did)," Whittaker told MMA Junkie. "I think it was an entire host of various things that got into my own head, and there was a great deal of things on my end - it's the manner in which I dealt with them and the manner in which I took them that aggravated it.

"I think (Adesanya) even referenced it - that my self image was something that impacted me. However much I would rather not recognize my adversary for understanding, my inner self most likely was something major, was a major piece of why my head space wasn't the place where it out to have been for that battle - why I was letting the discussion among Australia and New Zealand get to me, why I was allowing this multitude of seemingly insignificant details to get to me. It showed. The aftereffects of that displayed in the manner I was acting, in the manner in which I set up the battle and the manner in which I was battling at the time. I've recognized all of that and you can see clearly I've dealt with all of that and I'm an alternate warrior now than I was then, at that point.

Whittaker's exhibition against Gastelum was of specific significance on his move back to a title shot. While his successes over Till and Cannonier were close battles - 48-47 on every one of the three scorecards in his main event against Till and 29-28 on each of the three against Cannonier - the success over Gastelum never truly was in question.

Whittaker outlanded Gastelum 169-70 and hit four takedowns in the battle. Assuming he began revising his slip-ups from the principal Adesanya battle against Till and made a few additional changes against Cannonier, it seemed he set up everything against Gastelum.

"The main time I feel as a competitor you can address yourself, you can improve, you can improve, is the point at which you recognize your errors," Whittaker said. "That is how I've been treating that first misfortune (to Adesanya). Also every battle since that misfortune, I've been assembling things, recognizing what I could improve, what I fouled up, what I could change, and it's totally driven me to here. I'm exceptionally eager to get in there and scrutinized my abilities once more." How to live stream UFC 271 Australia

There were botches Whittaker says he made against Adesanya the initial time. And keeping in mind that those missteps would have all the earmarks of being physical in nature to most onlookers, Whittaker thinks a ton of it had to do with the manner in which he moved toward the battle intellectually and inwardly.

Will the rematch be unique? Whittaker figures it will be.

"Getting smacked in the face - certainly that one (was my greatest slip-up)," Whittaker said. "(In any case, most likely my wildness - I was foolishly charging in. I was falling into all of his goads, all of his snares, and just tenaciously attempting to press forward, attempting to press the assault, (and) rip his head off. That is the thing was going through my head, and it didn't work. It didn't work. That is not the way in which I normally battle. You don't see me battle like that in a ton of my different battles, until the end of time.

"I have tended to it. I've thought about it, and we will attempt to get in there and accomplish something else this next time."