UFC middleweight Israel Adesanya isn’t thrilled about his fifth undisputed title defense at UFC 276. But that doesn’t change how he feels about his job — or the critics who say he snoozed Jared Cannonier .
After five tactical, largely lackluster rounds against Cannonier, Adesanya admitted he had an “off night” at T-Mobile Arena. The champion’s trainer, Eugene Baremann, said those closest to him could tell he was not in top form.
“And yet, I’m still knocking it,” Adesanya said. “It was in the fight maybe when I couldn’t find my power punches, my kicks. … He was adjusting well. It wasn’t just me against him. It was him against my team.
Just as important as the belt was to Adesanya and the chance to defeat his chosen opponent Cannonier was a match between their trainers, Bareman and Cannonier, host John Crouch. It was, he said, “a battle of the game plans.”
Ultimately, the Las Vegas crowd didn’t like the game plan — or what happened when it fell apart. However, Adesanya had no time for his haters. Just as he pushed back the air traffic that competed with his microphone at the press conference, he said that people who didn’t like his performance were, to put it politely, unimportant.
“Fuck them,” he said. “They’ve been here since 3 p.m., they’re all drunk, they don’t know what a real fight is. I have said this, the great ones, they all come to this point.
Adesanya makes sense here. Previous dominant champions such as Georges St-Pierre and Anderson Silva, his predecessor, reached the point where many of their title defenses were not as competitive. The less they competed, the louder the accusations became that they were fighting safe, point fighting, or just plain boring.
Adesanya sat in the cheap seats before he took over the UFC and knows this cycle.
“GSP, people would boo him, and I’m like, ‘What the hell are you looking at? You’re dumb [Muhammad] Ali, Floyd Mayweather, same. You get to that point where you’re so awesome that people just want to see you fall. They just want to see you fall no matter what. If it’s not like a show, a spectacular performance, then it’s like, ah, he’s not even that good.
“But believe me, Jared knows I’m a good fighter. He knows I’m a great fighter and I gave him the same.
There will be another chance for Adesanya to showcase his greatness when he looks to avenge a pair of kickboxing losses – one by brutal knockout – to Alex Pereira, who knocked out Sean Strickland in the UFC 276 main card.
Strickland, the unofficial comedic hero of the UFC 276 presser, might have stolen the initiative from Pereira with a win. Instead, he hit the highlight reel and Adesanya refocused on the man who beat him.
“That’s the next battle,” Adesanya said. “I saw his fight. It was a good fight, but Sean Strickland needed to focus on his job, as I told him. How soon [will I fight him]we’ll find out.
“I’m going up against a guy who beat me in kickboxing and now, he’s still after me because he knows I’m the king and he wants to try and take that away from me. You see what happens when my back is against the wall.
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