UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya wasn’t too surprised with Robert Whittaker’s win over Marvin Vettori.
Whittaker (24-6 MMA, 15-4 UFC) put on a fantastic performance against former title challenger Vettori (18-5-1 MMA, 8-4-1 UFC) in this past Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 209 co-main event at Accor Arena in Paris.
Adesanya, who holds two wins each over Whittaker and Vettori, predicted that Whittaker would win. Although he credited Whittaker for “flowing” throughout the fight, Adesanya didn’t echo the same sentiment as the majority of fighters who were in awe of “The Reaper.”
“Rob went in there and then did his f*cking two fake kick him in the head, clipped him and then he banked on that, and then he kept on hitting him with it,” Adesanya said on his YouTube channel. “And Vettori showed a lot of shoulder and f*cking jittery and spazzed out, so yeah, that’s what the fight was.”
On the contrary, Adesanya thoroughly enjoyed the night’s headliner between Ciryl Gane and Tai Tuivasa, and praised Tuivasa for his toughness before he was ultimately finished in Round 3.
“Main event was dope,” Adesanya said. “Tai had his moment. He dinked him, almost sank him. Even Ciryl reckons he got knocked out, but he came back and did what he did, what he does.”
He continued, “Surprisingly, he was invested in that body early on. Yeah, Tai held on. Tai was like, just one more kamikaze, just like, ‘OK, I’m gonna take this shot, this pain right now, and I’m gonna flush him.’”
