Ex-champ Robert Whittaker returns, meets Jared Cannonier at UFC 248

Former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker has a dance partner for his return fight after losing the title.

Whittaker (20-5 MMA, 11-3 UFC) will fight Jared Cannonier (13-4 MMA, 6-4 UFC) at UFC 248 in March. UFC officials announced the new booking overnight following an initial report from The Saturday Telegraph.

UFC 248 takes place March 8 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims expected for ESPN and early prelims on UFC Fight Pass/ESPN+.

Whittaker won the interim middleweight title with a decision over Yoel Romero in July 2017. He later was promoted to undisputed titleholder. After 11 months, he fought Romero in a rematch and took a split call in a fight in which his belt wasn’t on the line because Romero missed weight.

After another lengthy absence of 16 months, Whittaker returned in August and was knocked out in the second round by Israel Adesanya in front of his home fans in Australia. Prior to that loss, he had nine straight wins and seven fight-night bonus awards.

Cannonier is less than two years removed from a rough patch that saw him drop three of four fights to Glover Teixeira, Jan Blachowicz and Dominick Reyes. But those bouts were at light heavyweight, and after the loss to Reyes in May 2018, he dropped to 185 pounds.

At middleweight the past 13 months, Cannonier has been on a tear with three straight knockouts. He stopped former two-division WSOF champ David Branch at UFC 230. At UFC 237, he took out longtime middleweight kingpin Anderson Silva. And in September, he upset Jack Hermansson in the UFC on ESPN+ 18 main event in Denmark.

With the addition, the UFC 248 lineup includes:

• Champ Zhang Weili vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk – for women’s strawweight title
• Li Jingliang vs. Neil Magny
• Jared Cannonier vs. Robert Whittaker