Four years before Rob Wilkinson won PFL gold, he was facing a debuting Israel Adesanya in what would be his final UFC fight.
The big difference between those two outings was the weight class; after losing his UFC contract Wilkinson bulked up to light-heavyweight and has gone on to major success. After the coronavirus pandemic cost him two years of fights, he signed up with the PFL and won their 2022 season at 205lb.
Now, he is back competing for the $500,000 PFL World Tournament, and is about to help launch the promotion’s efforts in Australia. He takes on UFC and Bellator veteran Phil Davis in the opening round of the new format, and believes he’s getting the hardest task done first.
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Rob Wilkinson faced horror weight cut in order to fight Israel Adesanya
In an exclusive chat with Bloody Elbow ahead of his fight with Phil Davis on Thursday night live on ESPN, Rob Wilkinson detailed just how difficult it was to make the middleweight limit. He did it on short notice for his first UFC fight, but says the bout with Israel Adesanya at UFC 221 was his toughest cut ever.
“I started fighting at middleweight when I was 19-years-old,” he explained. “I was lifting weights back then but also trying to cut weight. The last time I fought against Izzy in the UFC I had to lose about 30lb in five days and I wasn’t using a dietician, I didn’t have a specialist helping me.
“I was kind of just doing it on what I had done before and I really noticed in that fight that I was not able to recover and I gassed out very early. I had no energy and after that one I made the decision I wasn’t going to make middleweight again I’m going to move up.
“I got released from the UFC, took some time off and realized it was a good time to put on maybe a little bit more muscle so I’m not an undersized light-heavyweight because 20lb is a big jump. But I started having kickboxing fights around 210lb and felt much better and knew it would be my new home.”
Israel Adesanya taunted Rob Wilkinson over weight issues at UFC 221
Back in 2018, the UFC would do their official weigh-ins on stage at what is now the ‘ceremonials’, with a massive crowd in the fight arena watching. Wilkinson visibly struggled to climb just eight steps on to the stage, and initially missed the extended 186lb limit before using the towel to strip and weigh in again.
“The cuts were getting pretty bad when I think about them compared to what I do now,” Wilkinson continued. “They were just a lot more like, I hate to think about what I used to do to make weight, it was rough, a s— time and I never even thought about the fight until I made the weight.
“I was so stressed about it… I remember that event [UFC 221] Yoel Romero and Luke Rockhold fought in the main event and Yoel Romero had less weight to lose than me and didn’t make weight. Probably smarter, to be honest, he would have thought ‘I’m not going to make weight but I’ll win the fight at least’.
“I had to get full naked, I could barely walk on to the scales and up until the scales I pretty much had my hand on my coach the whole time just so I could stand up… I just remember facing off Izzy because straight away the face-off was right there.
“Izzy was mouthing off at me a little bit, he could see how f—ed I was, saying that I’m f—ed, I’ve got no time to get ready. We had less than 24 hours to rehydrate for that fight as well so I had a shorter time and he could see that. I was just thinking ‘shut up, I need to go and drink some water’!”