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UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker usually lets his actions speak for him.

The hard-hitting Australian never has been particularly boastful and has engaged in minimal trash talk during his UFC tenure. However, ahead of his UFC 243 title defense against Israel Adesanya (17-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC), Whittaker (20-4 MMA, 11-2 UFC) spoke out about an issue that hits home.

In the weeks leading up to his scheduled UFC 234 headliner, “The Reaper” battled depression. Training sessions became more grueling, and Whittaker began to lose interest in going to the gym.

In an interview with Submission Radio, Whittaker opened up about his daily struggles and how he got through the tough times.

“Depression is real, and it doesn’t matter who you are,” Whittaker said. “You can get depressed, and you can feel like you’re falling down a pit of despair.

“… Coming back from the injury, being behind in terms of the goal setting that I wanted – my markers. I was very behind. Seeing my training partners performing much better than I, it was a hard time to motivate myself, to keep going, to motivate myself to feel good. I was very apathetic and didn’t want to do anything.”

Depression presents itself differently in different people. For Whittaker, a general feeling of fatigue and lack of motivation were the biggest obstacles. He lacked the passion he once had for MMA.

“It’s not like I suddenly felt like picking up a new hobby,” Whittaker said. “It’s not like I suddenly felt like doing a new job. It was more of like, I didn’t want to do anything. I just wanted to have naps, not leave the house and just do nothing.

“It’s hard. I was demotivated to do anything. And it wasn’t specifically a sport-related thing, it was more everything. I was just tired. I was just tired of it all.”

The struggle became so real that Whittaker said at one point he considered retirement. He knew it was “do or die.” No matter how unmotivated he felt, Whittaker picked himself up and dragged himself to practice.

“Honestly, I just reached a point where I felt that it was either do or die for me,” Whittaker said. “So it was either I had to just start hitting the sessions, I had to get through it, I had to bite down on the mouthguard and just plod along – or not.

“And the alternative would have been to hang up the gloves, call it in. And I wasn’t ready to do that.”

Now Whittaker says he is no longer wrestling with the issue of depression. Somehow, the UFC champion overcame his mental health battle. How did Whittaker accomplish that? He’s not entirely sure, but he said his support system played a major role.

“That’s the hardest thing, and there’s no real answer to that,” Whittaker said. “But for myself, what really helped me is obviously the people that surrounded me. … And just knowing that they’re there, and you can talk to them is very important.”

In an effort to help others struggling with depression, Whittaker has announced he will conduct a speaking tour around Australia. The tour will start Nov. 21 in Brisbane and hit 12 locations all over the country, before it concludes in Perth on Dec. 6.

On Oct. 5 at Marvel Stadium, Whittaker will defend his belt against Israel Adesanya in the UFC 243 headliner. Also on the card, Al Iaquinta (14-5-1 MMA, 9-4 UFC) and Daniel Hooker (18-8 MMA, 8-4 UFC) will meet in a 155-pound matchup.