Adesanya clashes with McGregor over UFC knockdown claim

Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC

Israel Adesanya refutes Conor McGregor’s claim that he has the most knockdowns in a UFC world title fight.

Did you celebrate ‘world champ-champ’ day?

(Nah, we didn’t think so.)

That’s right, yesterday, Nov. 12 2020, marked the four-year anniversary of Conor McGregor’s TKO win over Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205, which saw The Irishman capture the lightweight title to become the first simultaneous two-division champion in the promotion’s history.

McGregor took the opportunity to celebrate on social media, where the former UFC featherweight and lightweight champ claimed to have set the record for the most knockdowns in a UFC title fight.

“Most Knockdowns in a UFC World Title Fight! Clinical shooting. I have surpassed this level, multiple times over. Excited to showcase!” McGregor posted on Instagram on Thursday.

McGregor claims to have scored five knockdowns against Alvarez but, according to UFC records, ‘The Notorious’ only dropped Alvarez three times.

Israel Adesanya was keen to correct McGregor in the comments, where the reigning UFC middleweight champ left the following message.

“2nd most knockdowns,” Adesanya posted with a wink emoji.

According to the UFC, Adesanya landed four knockdowns against Kelvin Gastelum in their headlining interim middleweight title bout at UFC 236, which puts ‘The Last Stylebender’ ahead of McGregor in the official record books. Granted, Adesanya fought Gastelum for the interim belt, but an interim title fight is still a title fight nonetheless.

McGregor and Adesanya are both managed by Paradigm Sports, so it will be interesting to see if McGregor decides to clap back at the middleweight champ.

For the record, McGregor has took issue with this in the past.