Even Muhammad Ali had stinker or two, as did Micky Ward. Every
great fighter is allowed to have an off night, and Saturday was
clearly an off night for the wildly popular Israel
Adesanya.
Adesaya remained undefeated while retaining his middleweight world
title in the main event of UFC 248 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The Nigerian star slowly picked apart Yoel Romero
(13-5) over five horribly dull and uneventful rounds. The lack of
action was exacerbated by the fact that it followed the insane war
between Weili Zhang
and Joanna
Jedrzejczyk, an epic battle that could possibly wind up being
2020’s ‘Fight of the Year.’
Romero barely mounted any sort of offense over the course of the
allotted 25 minutes and, with Adesanya (19-0) being a master
counterstriker, the title affair caused an angry crowd to launch
boos into the Octagon. Adesanya wound up winning a unanimous
decision to remain champion, but virtually nobody was thrilled
about the fight, including UFC president Dana White and Adesanya
himself.
“After the fight, I was really frustrated that my dance partner
didn’t want to dance,” Adesanya said. “A guy like Kelvin
Gastelum, he brought the fight. Robert
Whittaker, he brought the fight. It takes two to tango, so if
I’m trying to fight and you’re just standing there like, ‘C’mon,
c’mon,’ that’s stupid.”
Romero began the fight by slowly walking to the enter of the cage
and then standing there, not moving a muscle. He finally landed a
good left hook late in the frame, but the attacks from the Cuban
were too few and far between for them to actually mean anything.
Romero scored a takedown in the third but only tried two more
during the rest of the encounter.
“I took his best shot in the first round, that was probably the
only round that I gave him,” he said. “He has a good poker face.
He’s playing but his legs didn’t lie. I’ve never been in a boring
fight, I was expecting more of a fight from him. Even in the fifth
round, I thought he would be desperate and bring the fight and I
just kept waiting for the surge. Takes two to tango and I was the
only one willing to dance.”
Adesanya doubled down on his verbal assault on the challenger.
“If you want to come get the belt, come get the belt,” he said.
“I’m not going to come to you, are you stupid?”
But overall, “The Last Stylebender” says he was happy with his
patience and attack, even if the fight wasn’t one for the ages.
“I’m happy with my focus,” he said. “That’s how he catches a lot of
people – they get bored. My coaches told me I needed 25 minutes of
focus and I stayed focused the whole time. I won the fight at the
end of the day, I did my best. On a bad night, I still beat the No.
3 guy in the world.” The notion is that Adesanya will next defend
his 185-pound title against Brazilian brawler Paulo Costa.
Naturally, everything hinges on Costa being fully healed up injury,
but White said at the post-fight press conference that Costa will
be next.
