"We all know he's on steroids" - When Sean Strickland claimed Israel Adesanya lied about the origin of his UFC 253 gynecomastia

Israel Adesanya and Sean Strickland have been at loggerheads ages before they were announced to officially meet inside the octagon in a middleweight bout at UFC 293.

Adesanya will put his middleweight championship on the line against first-time challenger Strickland in the main event of the Sydney pay-per-view on September 9.

After his title defense against Paulo Costa at UFC 253, Israel Adesanya raised eyebrows amongst fans and pros alike for his visibly enlarged breast tissue that led to speculation of steroid abuse. Sean Strickland had doubled down on the allegations and affirmed his opinion ahead of Adesanya's rematch with Robert Whittaker.

In an interview with Helen Yee, 'Tarzan' rubbished Adesanya's excuse for his condition and blatantly put it down to steroid usage, with some clever albeit unwitting word play:

“I mean, Israel’s just a crafty motherf****r. Like, don’t get me wrong, we all know he does steroids. And that probably helps with the performance. We all seen him fight with the t*tty hung down. I mean, have you ever seen a man fight in the UFC with gyno? From weed? I mean, look at Nate Diaz, if that was the case, Nate Diaz would have had t*ts down to his knees. Get out of here with that. So anyways, back to him and Whittaker, Izzy’s a great striker, you know he comes from a steroid background of kickboxing. I think he’s gonna starch Whittaker."

Sean Strickland also laid into against the United States Anti-Doping Agency, claiming that it targets fighters who aren't as high profile as UFC champions:

"It just made me mad because you have all these top champions who are juiced out of their f*****g mind. We all know they are. I mean, again, Izzy with his b*tch t*tty. We all know they are and they get away with it. The only people that are being caught for steroids are the lower level guys who can’t afford the good doctors.”

Check out his full interview below on YouTube [4:06]:

---

Israel Adesanya refuses to give up smoking weed, blames it as cause of gynecomastia

Israel Adesanya was adamant that his pectoral was not affected due to steroid use.

In an interview with Ariel Helwani in 2020, he had clarified that he was unharmed and his hormonal levels are stable. He also put down the visible abnormality in his pectoral to his habit of smoking weed.

He said:

“My pituitary gland was checked, hormone levels are fine, so are estrogen and testosterone. Yesterday we had an ultrasound and a mammogram... It might have been unhealthy living a little bit. Like smoking weed, that’s what the doctor from the UFC said. He said I need to stop but I said I’m not stopping, I’m just going to slow down on the smoking weed.”

Check out Israel Adesanya's full comments below: