UFC Middleweight Champion Israel Adesanya believes his UFC 248 encounter with Yoel Romero to be the lowest point his mixed martial arts career has dipped to so far.
The UFC 248 main event, which took place on 7th March 2020 at the famed T-Mobile Arena, marked Izzy’s first 185-pound title defense, immediately succeeding the title unification fight against Robert Whittaker at UFC 243 in October 2019.
The heavily stacked card featured a Women’s Strawweight Title fight between Zhang Weili and Joanna Jedrzejczyk as co-main event, a bout which later became “the greatest fight in women’s MMA history.”
Following the superb clash between Weili and Jedrzejczyk, the fans were looking forward to the main event with much excitement but unfortunately, Adesanya vs. Romero didn’t live up to the expectations. Adesanya did pick up a win via unanimous decision, but the fight turned out to be one of the worst in MMA history.
That was the first time people were just like, ‘Ah, boring’: Israel Adesanya revisits his UFC 248 encounter against Romero
Even though ‘The Last Stylebender’ suffered his first and only professional defeat against Jan Blachowicz in his 205-pound debut, he revealed on his official YouTube channel FREESTYLEBENDER that its the Romero fight which he sees his career hitting the lowest point.
“If I’m being honest, the [Yoel] Romero fight,” said Adesanya, “Because that was the first time people were just like, ‘Ah, boring.’ He had another fight after me and he did the same thing. The smart people were like, ‘Ah, Israel was right. He’s doing the exact same thing.’ Cause he knew if he made a move against me the wrong way, I was gonna catch him.”
“Bits of this reared its ugly head [later on] but I squash it now cause I’m a dog and I know how to handle it,” the 33-year-old went on, “But after that fight, I was like, ‘I was fighting, he was just standing there, why are you blaming me?’ That’s why this now, I’m like whatever. I know what I’m gonna do. But that was my first time where I kind of felt like yuck, I hate to say it, ‘The fans turned on me’ in a way, where I was like, ‘Wait what? Now they’re saying I’m s—t. Did you not watch the one before this? The one before-before that?’
“That was like the worst for me. It wasn’t the ‘worst,’ but it was just the narrative and the voices that were loud. They were probably the minority but they were the loudest voices — the eat-ass c***s. That’s why I went into that Costa fight just free like, I’m gonna show you what’s up,” he added. [H/T MMA Fighting]
Adesanya will be back in action against his former kickboxing adversary Alex Pereira at UFC 281 on 12th November.
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