UFC 271, The Morning After: ‘Stylebender’ Survives On Narrow Margins

Here’s what you may have missed!

The first round of Israel Adesanya vs. Robert Whittaker may have been the finest five minutes of “Stylebender’s” spectacular UFC career.

Long, powerful, and menacing, Adesanya stalked Whittaker and made the Aussie look helpless. Whittaker was uncomfortable in every exchange, unable to land anything of significance, and getting his lead leg destroyed. A crisp cross down the center planted him on the canvas, and for that five minutes, it seemed incredible likely that Adesanya was going to live up to his promise of destroying Whittaker worse than in the previous contest.

Whittaker returned to his stool rattled and unconfident, a look we’ve never seen from the former champion. Even his knee abandoned him mid-fight or Yoel Romero rattled his brain stem, Whittaker’s composure has historically remained iron.

It’s a credit to “The Reaper” that he managed to recover and fight on, to prevent the moment from overwhelming him. That type of recovery takes genuine grit, backed up by self-belief and a whole lot of hard work.

However, it was made more possible by Adesanya easing off the gas.

For better or worse, “Stylebender” is an athlete content to win on the smallest of margins. For the next twenty minutes, did he ever really hurt Whittaker? Though he’s clearly proven himself capable of doing so on close to a half-dozen occasions now, Adesanya never really pushed himself to knock Whittaker out. Instead, he picked his shots, which were mostly chopping low kicks, and scored just enough to stay ahead on the cards.

There are advantages to this mentality. Because of his approach, it seems unlikely that we’ll see Adesanya outright dominated or brutally stopped anytime soon. His loss to Jan Blachowicz, ugly and competitive, seems like the much more likely worst-case scenario for the champion.

Compare that to someone like Cody Garbrandt or Jose Aldo or Whittaker himself — champions who cannot help but to engage, swinging to the bitter end— and well, it doesn’t sound like much of a curse.

The risks remain, however. Adesanya’s willingness to win on such small margins allowed Whittaker to work back into a fight that initially appeared to be a blowout. Instead, Adesanya won by just a single round on two of the three judges’ scorecards, and there’s a vocal minority that believes Whittaker edged three of five rounds.

None were ever as dramatic as the first, but Whittaker’s 10-9s count the same. Plus, this is TEXAS JUDGING — winning the punch count by a handful and trusting that infamous crew of fuckups to get it right is a massive gamble.

Even beyond the judging, Whittaker managed to jump Adesanya’s back and wiggle an arm around his chin in the fourth. It didn’t amount to anything … but it could have, and there goes the title belt. When faced with dangerous, elite competition, getting them out of the cage is sometimes the safest way to retain, whereas giving them the time to trial-and-error their way back into the fight in the name of caution can backfire.

All champions live and die by their styles, habits, and personalities. Israel Adesanya has risen to greatness via his precise, analytic style of combat. Last night, it scored him another defense over his greatest challenger to date.

Eventually, it will likely cost him the belt.

For complete UFC 271: “Adesanya vs. Whittaker” results and play-by-play, click HERE!