Israel Adesanya is brushing off Robert Whittaker’s belief that the wrong man had his hand raised at the end of UFC 271.
Adesanya and Whittaker did battle in a rematch on Feb. 12 for “Izzy’s” UFC Middleweight Title. The two collided inside the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. While their Oct. 2019 encounter ended in a second-round TKO finish, the rematch was quite different.
“The Last Stylebender” and “The Reaper” had a competitive fight but some felt Adesanya took his foot off the gas too frequently. Despite this, Adesanya managed to pull off the unanimous decision victory. After the fight, Whittaker told Daniel Cormier that he felt he did enough to win the fight.
Too Much Wine?
During an appearance on The MMA Hour, Israel Adesanya fired back at Whittaker’s post-fight rant.
“I know I won the fight. I’m not blown away. I’ve said this, he and Vettori are sipping the same wine that Costa was sipping. The fact that they thought — I’ve not watched the fight yet. I will watch the fight soon but normally when it’s a performance like I expected I watch it almost straight away but I’m kinda like, ‘meh.’ I did well early on, and then later on I wasn’t able to find what I was looking for and I wish I had trusted my instinct more. The first fight I trusted my instinct and I just went with the flow. I called an audible, we stepped away from the game plan.”
“Izzy” went on to say that he didn’t want to dwell on his success in the first fight with Robert Whittaker as he felt doing so would be a mistake. He regrets not asking his corner which punch dropped Whittaker early in the fight.
Adesanya is likely due for a clash with Jared Cannonier. The UFC Middleweight Champion has long sought out a showdown with Cannonier and UFC President Dana White has committed to giving “The Killa Gorilla” the next shot.