UFC Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya isn’t taking any risks heading into his title fight against Marvin Vettori. Adesanya has chosen to remove MMA judge Chris Lee from his duties, the judge who scored their first encounter with Marvin.
To date, fans of the sport believe Marvin Vettori has been the most challenging test for Adesanya to date in the Middleweight division. At 185lbs, Vettori is the only opponent who has won rounds against Israel. On that night, Chris Lee scored their first encounter for Marvin, with 29-28. Because of that scoring, Adesanya’s victory was officially labeled as a split-decision win.
Adesanya vs Vettori I
However, if anyone were to ask Adesanya, he would say that the fight was one by a wide margin. Throughout the conflict, Adesanya was nearly in control. He showcased his trademark kicking boxing with crisp movement and accurate strikes. At one point in the fight, Israel was so comfortable that he threw a spinning head kick that landed.
Adesanya turning it on in round 2!#UFCGlendale @Stylebender pic.twitter.com/jbxTVKRpCt
— UFC (@ufc) April 15, 2018
Adesanya and Team Remove Judge Chris Lee
But when it came down to the scoring, one judge controversially gave the fight to Marvin. Now that Adesanya has a championship on the line, he’ll ensure that all three judges are of high quality without any suspicious behavioral pasts.
“Eugene already made a complaint a while back to I think Mick (Maynard) saying ‘we never want him to judge again.’ And apparently, he was scheduled to judge this fight again and shout out to my man Tim from Paradigm. He said ‘no f*cking way’, and yeah, we got him out of there. No disrespect to him but full disrespect to him if he actually thought Marvin won the last fight,” said Adesanya.
Currently, it’s unknown who the three judges will be that score the fight. We know for sure that Adesanya and his team made sure that Chris Lee wasn’t involved. Then again, he also vowed to finish Vettori, with no judges needed.
