Photo by Mike Roach/Zuffa LLC
Reigning Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight champion Israel Adesanya received heavy criticism for his UFC 248 pay-per-view (PPV) main event last March in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he captured a tepid unanimous decision victory over “statue” Yoel Romero.
During his five-round snoozer, “The Last Stylebender” kept getting heckled by top middleweight contender Paulo Costa, who is expected to (eventually) get the next crack at the 185-pound title over the next few months.
Right up until “The Eraser” got shut down by heavyweight smashing machine Francis Ngannou.
“At my last fight – nobody wants to fuck with Francis – Paulo was acting up,” Adesanya told Submission Radio. “You know how he got kicked out? He was acting up, misbehaving, acting a fool. And at one point – Dan told me this, Dan Hooker told me this – it’s like, Paulo sacked it to Francis cause Francis told him to shut the fuck up, that his last fight wasn’t that great anyways, and he just shut up and didn’t even make eye contact.”
Costa (13-0) has not competed since his three-round unanimous decision victory over Romero at UFC 241 last August. While it was certainly entertaining, their wild, tongue-wagging brawl was ugly from a technical standpoint and marked the first time “The Eraser” has been to the judges’ scorecards.
“He was like, ‘hey, Paulo, shut up, your last fight wasn’t even that good anyway,’ and he just like, he just ignored him like he didn’t hear it,” Adesanya continued. “Everyone in the fucken front row heard it and everyone saw him shit his pants. So, no one wants to fuck with Francis. And I said, [Jon Jones] been around the fucking game for 10 years he’s never jumped up in weight. He’s not doing it. Trust me.”
Ngannou, fresh off his murderous knockout of Jairzinho Rozenstruick at UFC 249 earlier this month in Jacksonville, is hoping to get the winner of Stipe Miocic vs. Daniel Cormier, who are expected to complete their trilogy at some point later this summer.