Marvin Vettori sees a massive hole in UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya’s game that he’ll look to exploit in their rematch.
Vettori (17-4-1 MMA, 7-2-1 UFC) meets Adesanya in the main event of UFC 263 on June 12, aiming to not only claim the title but also avenge his split decision loss.
Adesanya (20-1 MMA, 9-1 UFC) edged out Vettori in April 2018, and both men have gone on impressive runs since. But Vettori thinks he’s made a lot more advancements in his game since their first outing, and he sees a big chink in the champion’s armor.
In an attempt to become a dual champ, Adesanya lost for the first time when he dropped a unanimous decision to light heavyweight champ Jan Blachowicz at UFC 259. Blachowicz was able to take Adesanya down multiple times, which didn’t surprise Vettori all that much.
“For me, it’s relevant, but it just proved a lot of things that I already knew,” Vettori told Mike Swick on the “Real Quick with Mike Swick” podcast. “People pictured him like the Mayweather of MMA, and he’s not. He’s not. Jan was doing a great job defensively and then he was able to take him down again. People were picturing him like this phenom. He’s good, but he gets hit, and he misses a lot of shots, and he gets taken down. I can do all of that.”
Vettori thinks Adesanya showed no sense of urgency on the ground and didn’t have much to offer from off his back. “The Italian Dream” used a heavy grappling approach in his past dominant win over Kevin Holland and sees it as his route to victory against Adesanya.
“With Jan, the last time he got taken down, he kind of quit,” Vettori said. “He was just laying there. Adesanya, when it comes to the middle of the cage, when he’s taken down in the middle of the cage and he doesn’t have the cage, he’s pretty useless on the floor to be honest. Kevin Holland is a better jiu-jitsu player than Adesanya for sure. Even when Adesanya said, and I made fun of it because even after the Blachowicz fight he was like, ‘I was trying to go for deep half.’
“I’m like, what the f**k are you talking about. There was no attempt to go to deep half. That shows you don’t know what deep half is, and I know exactly what deep half is, because I’ve been training with (Fabricio) Werdum. I actually used deep half in my Roberson fight. I used it successfully. His game and the way he fights, because he scrambles hard the moment you try to take him down next to the cage, but yeah definitely when he’s down, he’s pretty useless to be honest.”
Marvin Vettori: UFC champ Israel Adesanya is ‘pretty useless’ once on the mat
