Jan Blachowicz shocked the MMA world at UFC 259. The Polish Powerhouse convincingly defeated Israel Adesanya, picking up the unanimous decision victory. The light heavyweight champion will likely defend his belt next against Glover Teixeira. However, he has also called for another contest with ‘The Last Stylebender’ but in a rather different sport.
Undisputed 205lb Ping Pong Champion
Speaking with ESPN MMA‘s Ariel Helwani, Blachowicz was asked about his thoughts on the respectful attitude Adesanya had shown to him, both pre and post-fight. Blachowicz stated that the respect was mutual, and also revealed an interesting anecdote in which the two fighters agreed on another competition of sorts. He had the following to say:
“I’m just happy you know, I also have a lot of respect for him. He’s a nice guy. I like him, I like his style. I wish him best in his future, his next fight. I’m just happy, he’s got respect for me, I’ve got respect for him. And anyway we’ve got one more. Before fight we say together we have to play ping pong you know. After the fight. So we’ve still got one fight, but with ping pong.”
“In my gym, in Poland, you can lose sparring. No problem. But always before training, we play ping pong for the warmup. And if you lose at ping pong, everybody is like I defeat you, you p***y.”
Champion @JanBlachowicz feels he owes Israel Adesanya another match…
…in table tennis 🏓 (via @arielhelwani) pic.twitter.com/ZDiHqoP8W3
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) March 10, 2021
There is still a chance that Jan Blachowicz will rematch Adesanya in the octagon as well. ‘The Last Stylebenders’ head coach, Eugene Bareman, recently went on record to state that they may go hunting for that Polish Power again, sometime in the future.
