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Citing Israel Adesanya’s recent performances, most of which have been decision victories, Henry Cejudo has suggested that the UFC should stop giving ‘The Last Stylebender’ the promotional push.
Adesanya used WWE legend The Undertaker’s theme song and entrance style for his most recent fight against Jared Cannonier at UFC 276 on July 2. ‘Izzy’ won the fairly uneventful matchup via unanimous decision. Cejudo, akin to many others, was critical of Adesanya's performance in the fight.
In an appearance on The Triple C & Schmo Show, ‘Triple C’ stated:
“It’s crazy when you come out to freaking, to The Undertaker [theme song], and you didn’t put on a performance, man, on Saturday night. It was lame, dude. You gotta start giving, main events are special, dude. If he’s not performing, UFC, stop pushing this dude. He’s a decision-maker.”
Israel Adesanya’s last stoppage victory was a second-round TKO over Paulo Costa in September 2020. Former two-division UFC champion Cejudo alluded to the fact that Costa was self-admittedly drunk and sleep-deprived heading into the fight.
'Triple C' claimed that the only fight where Adesanya impressively defeated a top-tier opponent was his first encounter with Robert Whittaker in 2019. ‘The Last Stylebender’ won that fight via second-round KO. Cejudo added:
“He hypes a lot, and he doesn’t deliver. He talks a lot, and he doesn’t deliver. It’s been like that with him for a minute now. And I think if you’re gonna call people out and do all this other stuff, finish them. Put a beating on people. Be spectacular. People look forward more to his entrance than his actual fight, and that’s a problem because what you do wanna be good at is when you fight.”
Watch Cejudo discuss the topic at 10:54 in the video below:
Aljamain Sterling defends Israel Adesanya’s UFC 276 performance
UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya will likely defend his belt against Alex Pereira next, a longtime rival who’s previously beaten ‘The Last Stylebender’ twice in the sport of kickboxing.
Intriguingly, after his UFC 276 performance against Cannonier, certain sections of the MMA community have been criticizing Adesanya for being a “boring” fighter.
UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling subsequently spoke out in defense of Israel Adesanya’s performance. Taking to his YouTube channel, Sterling explained that Adesanya rightfully prioritizes winning rather than taking risks to put on entertaining performances in high-level title fights. Sterling said:
“For me, I can't say Izzy is boring. I think he's very, very technical. I'm not gonna say that fight was 'Fight of the Year', but it was a good technical fight that a lot of people can take notes from and learn from."
Watch Sterling's assessment below:
