UFC President Dana White has revealed some details about the serious nature of the injury that forced Robert Whittaker to pull out of UFC 234. Whittaker (20-4 MMA, 11-2 UFC), the UFC middleweight champion, was forced to withdraw from his scheduled title defense against Kelvin Gastelum (16-3 MMA, 10-3 UFC) just hours before tonight’s event at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Australia, was scheduled to begin. The champion was rushed into “emergency surgery” to repair an abdominal issue after he started experiencing symptoms overnight. He’s out from under the knife now, though, and White said on the UFC 234 preliminary card broadcast on ESPN it could have been much worse. Related Twitter reacts to Robert Whittaker's stunning withdrawal from UFC 234 “This was one of those freak accidents where the doctor said he’d literally never seen this type of injury in a young person – this usually happens to old people,” White said. “… They think he’s had this problem and it’s been going in and out, and it’s one of those situations had it popped out during the fight, it could have been fatal for him.
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