Israel Adesanya is taking the brunt of criticism following lackluster UFC 276 performance. Adesanya admitted himself that he had ‘an off night’ saying.
“GSP, people would boo him, and I’m like, ‘What the f*** are you guys watching? You dumb f****. [Muhammad] Ali, Floyd Mayweather, same thing. “
“You get to this point where, like, you’re so great, people just want to see you fall. They just want to see you fall, no matter what. If it’s not like a show-out, spectacular performance, then it’s like, ah, he’s not even that good.”
“But trust, Jared knows I’m a good fighter. He knows I’m a great fighter, and I gave him the same credit as well.”
Of course, Adesanya was also criticized by likely next challenger Alex Pereira, as well as hollywood star Chris Pratt.
“I don’t know this game, I’m just an actor, man. But, I’m not a fan of coming out with all that talk and then putting on a little bit of pitter patter.”
“I’m like ‘Come on, man! Cash on that!’ You gotta cash that promise of being so bad ass. And I dunno. If I bet with my money, I would have bet Adesanya’d do something like that. But I was hoping to see Cannonier make it.”
But while it’s not hard to push back against a hollywood actor – this next short video might have nailed it.
Adesanya’s style relies on calf kicks in order to slow down his opponents and pick them apart. He’s also quite content to wait for a proper opportunity and counter and with a lack of wrestling in the division he’s not really challenged.
The one respected wrestler Adesanya faced was Yoel Romero, and their match was the start of the odd performances Adesanya would put on with hardly anything happening for the majority of round 1.
Adesanya has the lowest finishing rate of any male UFC current champion and is overall just over Carla Esparza’s finishing rate – and we all know how her match with Rose Namajunas went.
To make matters worse – even though he’s still widely criticized Adesanya has the backing of his fans. He convincingly won the crypto.com fan bonus of the night grabbing close to 20% of the vote on the site with Volkanovski coming up behind him.