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I have been watching Robert Whitaker's career for quite a while now and am extremely impressed by the fighter he has become. As far as I know, up until fairly recently (maybe 1-1.5 years) Whitaker was fighting primarily out of PMA Martial Arts in Australia under head coach Henrry Perez. It looks like Perez is a guy with a varied martial arts background that includes a lot of traditional striking arts. Obviously Whitaker became a very good 170 pound fighter with this guy.
Fast forward to today and Whitaker is the 185 pound champion and looking outstanding. It seems that Whitaker's ascension to champion has been assisted greatly by a few things:
1 Size. No more draining weight cut to WW has allowed him to fill out significantly.
2 Time. He has more experience and is coming into his own as a fighter.
3 Wrestling. Whitaker has seemingly embraced wrestling a whole lot and as most of you know, he even won a National Freestyle title. I know Aussie wrestling has never been very strong internationally, but they do have a small group of very good homegrown wrestlers who have been at it a long time AND quite a few world class wrestlers who have relocated to Australia and gotten involved in the wrestling scene.
Which brings me to the point of this thread. A year or so ago Whitaker started dropping the name Fabricio Itte in interviews when he would be asked about his training (specifically, his wrestling training). He started out naming Itte as his wrestling/Takedown coach and now it looks like Itte can be considered his head coach.
Does anyone know anything about this guy Fabricio Itte? I looked him up a bit and while it's clear he is plugged into the Australian wrestling scene, I couldn't find a thing about his background.
Fast forward to today and Whitaker is the 185 pound champion and looking outstanding. It seems that Whitaker's ascension to champion has been assisted greatly by a few things:
1 Size. No more draining weight cut to WW has allowed him to fill out significantly.
2 Time. He has more experience and is coming into his own as a fighter.
3 Wrestling. Whitaker has seemingly embraced wrestling a whole lot and as most of you know, he even won a National Freestyle title. I know Aussie wrestling has never been very strong internationally, but they do have a small group of very good homegrown wrestlers who have been at it a long time AND quite a few world class wrestlers who have relocated to Australia and gotten involved in the wrestling scene.
Which brings me to the point of this thread. A year or so ago Whitaker started dropping the name Fabricio Itte in interviews when he would be asked about his training (specifically, his wrestling training). He started out naming Itte as his wrestling/Takedown coach and now it looks like Itte can be considered his head coach.
Does anyone know anything about this guy Fabricio Itte? I looked him up a bit and while it's clear he is plugged into the Australian wrestling scene, I couldn't find a thing about his background.