Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight title holder, Israel Adesanya (The Last Style Bender) has been described as a very brave fighter, for daring to accept taking on Yoel Romero in his first defence of his belt.
Megasportsarena.com gathered that this is the verdict of UFC president, Dana White, who noted that nobody ever wanted to fight Cuba’s Romero willingly, but Adesanya, who fights out of New Zealand has readily accepted the opponent for a clash on Saturday in the main event of UFC 248 at T-Mobile Arena.
There were a lot of potential opponents who would have gladly taken this slot against one of the UFC’s rising stars, and White and his team presented most of them to Adesanya, but the Nigerian mixed martial arts (MMA) star chose to make the first defense of his middleweight title against the imposing Cuban giant, who is also a wrestler and salsa dancer.
Romero will become the second main event fighter in less than two full fights to enter the bout coming off back-to-back losses, as Donald Cerrone did at UFC 246 when he met Conor McGregor on Jan. 18.
All three of those losses, two by decision to Robert Whittaker and another by decision to Paulo Costa, wound up being chosen as Fight of the Night, while the one fight in his last four that he won was a knockout victory over ex-champion Luke Rockhold at UFC 221.
That, coincidently, was the card on which Adesanya made his UFC debut, and he is now gunning for history on the same plane this weekend, ahead of which White revealed several key factors and talking points for the potentially explosive title fight.
The UFC boss added that Adesanya was insistent that Romero, a silver medalist for Cuba in the 2000 Olympics in freestyle wrestling, be the one for his first defense, though the veteran has lost his last two fights and three of his last four.
White said: “I never get anybody calling me and saying, ‘Hey Dana, I want to fight Yoel Romero. [Adesanya] just kept blowing up my phone: ‘I want Romero. I want Romero. I want Romero.’ I respect that. You want to fight a guy like that, I respect it and so we made it happen.
“When do you ever hear a guy call him out? It doesn’t happen. Guys wind up fighting him because the rankings dictate it or whatever, but no one is volunteering for that.”
Indeed, it promises to be an epic night for Adesanya, who, Just over two years after getting the belt is in the main event against arguably the most feared man in the sport, but he says it is no big thing.
Adesanya, whose idol, ex-UFC champion Anderson Silva, had a thin body that was more like his, and he became the most dominant champion in the sport at the time, is also brushing aside the simplistic view of the problem that Romero presents as an elite wrestler that could probably physically manhandle the champ once he gets his hands on him.
However, for Adesanya, whose background is as a kickboxer, there is nothing to be overly concerned about and, while few fighters look better physically with shorts and their shirts off than Romero, whose body structure is all muscles, the Nigerian insists his opponent’s thick musculature is overrated.
It is the same thing with Costa, who is also built like a bodybuilder and beat Romero in a wildly entertaining fight at UFC 241 last year in Anaheim, California, by the narrowest of margins, and, though Adesanya admits those types of bodies look good, he insists they are not always good enough for the needs of an MMA fight.
“People are fooled by this Hollywood facade of muscles. It’s been ingrained in us since we were kids, from [Arnold] Schwarzenegger, from Rambo: ‘Rrrrr. He must be tough,” said Adesanya, who at 185 pounds is a wiry 6-foot-4.
