"Why even train?" - Aljamain Sterling voices support for Israel Adesanya and his performance at UFC 276

UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling has expressed his support for Israel Adesanya after his fight against Jared Cannonier at Saturday’s UFC 276 event. Adesanya beat Cannonier via unanimous decision in a largely uneventful fight.

Certain sections of the MMA community criticized Adesanya for being “boring” and not pursuing a finish against Cannonier. In a YouTube Shorts video, Sterling presented a condensed version of his take on the fight. He stated:

“You’re not going to be able to go out there and have those barnburners every single time. That’s just my personal opinion. And you guys gotta understand – It is a world title fight. There’s big consequences.”

“It’s like, why even train for weeks and weeks and weeks if you guys just want us to go out there and just slang-and-bang and not use our fight IQ that we worked on the entire week, weeks I should say, leading up to the fight.”

Watch Sterling address the topic in the video below:

Sterling posted a full-length video regarding the fight's technical aspects. He opined that the matchup wasn’t boring, calling it “a very good” and “very technical” MMA fight.

The 32-year-old opined that both athletes fought well. He lauded Adesanya for intelligently steering clear of Cannonier’s vaunted KO power. Sterling also pointed out that Cannonier could’ve utilized better technique to secure takedowns and beat Adesanya on the mat like Jan Blachowicz did at light heavyweight.

'Funk Master' suggested that Israel Adesanya has been unable to score stoppage victories lately because, as the middleweight champion, he’s consistently had to face elite foes rather than the lower-tier ones he fought early in his career.

Watch Sterling’s complete assessment of the fight below:

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Israel Adesanya believes he had an off night at UFC 276

The consensus is that reigning UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya will likely defend his title against archnemesis Alex Pereira next. Intriguingly, while revisiting his performance against Cannonier at UFC 276, Adesanya revealed that he had an off night. During an interview with the UFC’s McKenzie Pavacich, ‘The Last Stylebender’ was asked whether Cannonier was his toughest title defense yet.

Israel Adesanya responded by insinuating that his closely-contested unanimous decision win over Kelvin Gastelum in 2019 was a tougher fight, at least in regards to physicality. While noting that the Jared Cannonier fight was tougher in the mental realm, Adesanya said:

“Uh, toughest in a different way. Not like the [Kelvin] Gastelum [fight], where it was brute strength. Toughest, mentally. Mentally, to try and find the power shots. Yeah, it was really – it was just an off night for me.”

Watch Adesanya’s interview below: