Nigeria’s Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya (The Last Style Bender) has been hit with a broadside, as his last victim, Marvin Vettori is staying defiant several months after falling to the title holder.
Megasportsarena.com reports that Adesanya went on to lose his chance of adding another belt in the higher weight category to his haul and, though he will not be in The Octagon for the latest round of UFC bouts, Vettori is recounting their tussle back in June.
The New Zealand-based Nigerian sensation won his title fight with Vettori 50-45 on all three cards, but the loser told Yahoo Sports he left the cage even more certain that he’d one day become the UFC world champion.
Indeed, right after the ring announcement confirming Adesanya as winner on the night of UFC 263, Vettori acted shocked.
He has now restated his doubts, after Bruce Buffer’s announcement made official Adesanya’s unanimous decision victory over him in their middleweight title fight.
Seconds before Buffer read the judges’ verdict, when Adesanya greeted Vettori after the final bell, Vettori told him he believed he’d won the bout.
Adesanya responded by making an odd face that was caught on camera, but Vettori insists that belief in oneself is a critical element of success in all walks of life, but particularly in fighting.
There are few in the UFC who believe in themselves more than Vettori, the fifth-ranked middleweight who on Saturday at UFC Vegas 41 will face No. 2 Paulo Costa in a critical matchup at Apex.
Like Adesanya, Costa is a striker, but that is where the similarities end, as the Nigerian is a counter striker who looks to set traps, make his opponent overextend and then take advantage.
Furthermore, Costa is an aggressive, attack-first fighter who is looking to take his opponent out with every strike he throws.
A win over Costa would be the biggest in his career and inch him back up toward the top of the middleweight rankings.
It might take him longer to get another title shot at Adesanya, who now has two wins over him, but Vettori isn’t one to fret about things like that, which are out of his control.
Vettori, who is rated a -150 favorite at BetMGM to beat Costa (+125), said about his loss to Adesanya: “For sure, what the judges saw is not the perspective of what the fight was. And there was all that s*** the media talked.
“I just want fairness, but of course, what is fair to one person, another person sees the same thing and it’s not fair. There’s common sense, and I think there was a lot of misjudging and misleading information about the fight.
“But it is what it is and it’s one of the reasons I never want to leave it in the hands of the judges. Regardless of thinking of whether I won or I lost, it’s not about that. I don’t want to leave it in the hands of the judges.”
