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Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight champion Israel Adesanya is gearing up for his UFC 253 pay-per-view (PPV) main event against undefeated 185-pound contender Paulo Costa, a five-round battle that takes place on Sept. 26 at “Fight Island” in Abu Dhabi.
Aside from just retaining his division title, Adesanya is looking forward to the aesthetic of the fight, where the skinny champion will defeat the hulking challenger. And I’m sure “The Last Stylebender” will also get a certain satisfaction from silencing the “dumb casuals.”
“I think it’s great for me, it’s that aesthetic of it, I’m this skinny person, this little frail kid that everyone looks at,” Adesanya told ESPN. “And he looks like the perfect antagonist, he’s big, bulky and juiced up to the fucking gills. He’s a guy that beats everybody on the fence, so when I come out there with the Bruce Lee shit and fuck him up, it’s going to be ‘oh my god wow, he beat that big muscle boy.’”
Costa (13-0) has been accused of taking steroids for years and despite a recent run-in with United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), “The Eraser” has yet to pop for performance-enhancing drugs. Sadly in MMA you’re guilty until proven innocent.
Adesanya (19-0), who captured the division crown by planishing Robert Whittaker last October, is coming off a decision win over Yoel Romero back in March and is hoping to clean out the middleweight division en route to a future Jon Jones fight in the heavyweight division.