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.