With a wine glass in his hand and a pizza on the table, UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya roasted two former foes in his most recent fight breakdown.
Paulo Costa and Marvin Vettori square off in the UFC Fight Night 196 main event Saturday. Having beaten both men in back-to-back title defenses, Adesanya’s insight was pretty good.
Of course, “The Last Stylebender” had some fun with it, taking shots at both men while breaking down their paths to victory. He started with Vettori, whom he’s beaten twice, most recently in a lopsided unanimous decision at UFC 263 in June.
“Vettori’s biggest weapon in this fight is his chin,” Adesanya said. “That block head – that f*cking LEGO block head. That’s his biggest weapon in this fight because he can take Costa to deep water by taking punishment – some rope-a-dope sh*t without the rope-a-dope, just walking forward and taking punishment. … He can take a lot of punishment, I’ll give him that. I would say his method of victory is just taking Costa to deep water by grappling him and stalling or just making him work. But Vettori has to be willing to try and actually do something rather than just stall.”
Adesanya thinks Costa has more “educated” striking than Vettori and should resort to his aggressive nature in the fight.
“Costa’s path to victory in this fight? Get him out early. I feel like, do what you did that got you to the dance, that got you this far, because you’re not fighting me, you’re fighting Vettori and he’s got sh*t footwork, even worse than you. So I feel like Costa can just do what he does and just bull rush him, bulldoze him. But be careful of the takedowns because Vettori is going to try that to time it and take him down. But like I said, he has good counter wrestling, good defense.
“I want to see my children do well. I really wish the best for my kids and my kid’s kid.”
To watch Adesanya’s full breakdown, check out the video below:
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