UFC on ESPN 14 Odds: Whittaker Narrowly Favored vs. Till in Middleweight Showdown

Robert Whittaker faces a difficult challenge if he wants to bounce back from losing his middleweight title, as he takes on No. 5 contender Darren Till in the main event of UFC on ESPN 14 this Saturday.

When Whittaker last stepped into the Octagon, , who knocked out the former champion in the second round at UFC 243.

That loss wasn’t nearly enough to knock Whittaker (20-5) out of the title picture. But the 29-year-old will need to beat Till this weekend if he wants to stay on the shortlist of contenders in the middleweight division.

Whittaker enters the bout as a -135 favorite over Till (+108), according to PointsBet.

Whittaker considered retirement after the loss to Adesanya. But after taking time to reflect on his situation, he regained his hunger for competition.

It was a natural decision,” Whittaker told Yahoo Sports. “It was a combination of me talking to my team, of me talking to my family. Soul Searching. It was a mixture of the lot. That’s the journey of this sport, to just get better.”

Till (18-2-1) has lost two of his past three fights but is looking to work his way into the middleweight title picture. Till says a win over Whittaker should immediately rocket him into a championship fight.

“If I win, I’m fighting , and that’s all there is to it,” Till told reporters on Tuesday’s media day. “If I beat Whittaker, I don’t want to hear any name come out of anybody’s mouth other than Israel Adesanya.”

Mauricio “Shogun” Rua will look to beat Antonio Rogerio Nogueira for a third time in the UFC on ESPN 14 co-main event. Rua enters as a -195 favorite over Nogueira (+155) in the light heavyweight fight.

The two men first fought while in Pride FC in 2005, then took a rematch in the UFC in 2015. Rua won by unanimous decision on both occasions.

“I fought Nogueira [at] the start of my career, the middle, and the final,” Rua told reporters on Tuesday. “I’m happy because Rogerio is a legend of the sport, and I know this fight motivates him. But for me, too, and I’m very happy for this fight.”

The 44-year-old Nogueira has announced that this will likely be his final professional MMA fight.

I think it’s a good time to stop now. I think it’s going to be the last one,” Nogueira told reporters. “In my last three years, it was very difficult to train, because I had a herniated disc. I had to cancel a lot of fights. Every year I fought one time, then the second one I would have to cancel.”

Also on the UFC on ESPN 14 card, Fabricio Werdum (+260) takes on Alexander Gustafsson (-350) in a heavyweight tilt, while the undefeated Marina Rodriguez (-185) is favored over Carla Esparza (+145) in women’s strawweight action.