Israel
Adesanya claims to have agreed to headline UFC
300 against Dricus Du
Plessis only to find out that the middleweight champ had turned
the fight down.
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UFC matchmakers were long in search of a high-caliber booking to
feature as the main event of the landmark card, which goes down at
the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on April 13. While Alex
Pereira will now defend his light heavyweight strap against
Jamahal
Hill in the headliner, Adesanya also reportedly received the
call for the slot. However, “The Last Stylebender” claims Du
Plessis didn’t accept the fight due to minor injuries suffered in
the South African’s title win over Sean
Strickland at UFC 297 in January.
“There’s some things that were meant to happen,” Adesanya said on
the “This Past Weekend” podcast with Theo Von. “They
summoned me, I’m sure this is out there now… but they summoned me
for [UFC] 300, and I was like ‘Yep, let’s roll.’ But their side
didn’t want it. They didn’t want it… They just fought [Sean]
Strickland so maybe he had a little bit of niggly injuries and
stuff, but we’ve all got niggles and what not.”
Adesanya’s previous booking against Du Plessis also didn’t come to
fruition last year as the turnaround was too quick for
“Stillknocks,” who earned his title shot by knocking out former
champ Robert
Whittaker. Du Plessis was replaced on short notice by
Strickland, who went on to score one of the biggest upset wins in
the history of
Ultimate Fighting Championship title fights. Adesanya noted
that injuries are an inevitable part of the sport and that they
have never deterred him from showing up.
“I’ve fought injured for the last how many fights, that’s why I
took time off just to let my body heal,” he said. “It has healed
and I’m sure there will be more injuries, it just happens through
training. Like what we do for work, it’s constantly something.”