“He said I believe my own hype? But wow, after that, who’s believing their own hype?”
If Marvin Vettori was in charge of the judging, he’d be two fights up against Israel Adesanya following Saturday’s rematch at UFC 263.
In reality Vettori is 0-2 against Adesanya but the No. 3-ranked middleweight still can’t come to terms with losing to ‘The Last Stylebender’ not once, but twice.
Adesanya, who beat Vettori via unanimous decision in the UFC 263 main event, revealed that ‘The Italian Dream’ refused to accept the loss and was very bitter about the result.
“I don’t know because even at the end of the fight, I was like, ‘You can at least say I won that one,’” Adesanya said at the post-fight press conference (h/t MMA Junkie). “He’s like, ‘What? This one? This one?’ I was like, ‘Are you serious? I won that.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, no. We can’t. We can’t.’ Eric Cartman mentality, man. You’ve got to believe your own bullsh*t, sometimes. He said I believe my own hype? But wow, after that, who’s believing their own hype?”
Adesanya said it is imperative that Vettori accepts the loss and moves on if his goal is to one day become champion himself.
“After my last fight, I won’t say who, but certain people thought I won that fight,” Adesanya said of his loss to Jan Blachowicz. “Certain people in my camp thought I won that fight but I was just like, ‘Nah, it was close, but I’ll take the ‘L’ from that one and I will grow. I will learn.’ If I wanted to have his mentality, I’d hold onto that. I’d keep going after Jan and it’s so stupid. That’s not how you grow. How you grow is you learn from your mistakes. You go back to the drawing board and you improve. You become better from them. ‘Ls’ are a part of life. Losses make you better.”
“I don’t know where this whole mentality comes from that, ‘Oh, you took a loss, and now you’re over.’ Nah, it’s part of life. Take it and let it improve you,” he added. “My advice to him would be to look yourself in the mirror tonight – maybe not tonight. Give it a week. Let things settle down. Look at yourself in the mirror and be like, ‘Look, Israel is better than you. Israel is better than you. Izzy is way better than you. You couldn’t do shit to him, but I’m going to get better from this.’ I swear to you, his next fight will improve if he does the work right. But you’ve got to let it go. You’ve got to let it go.”
Adesanya defended his middleweight title for the third time and is on track to becoming one of the greatest champions in UFC history. The 31-year-old is ranked #4 in the UFC men’s pound-for-pound rankings.