‘The Last Stylebender’ seemed surprised at how aggressive Cannonier was against Vettori given his relative lack of offense in recent fights.
Jared Cannonier returned with a vengeance on Saturday night, putting on a dominating fight against Marvin Vettori that earned him a unanimous decision win and $50,000 in Fight of the Night bonus money.
The performance was a far cry from his last two fights where the “Killa Gorilla” fought very tentatively. In his previous bout against Sean Strickland, he eked out a split decision win. The time before that, he was panned heavily for his middleweight title fight against Israel Adesanya. Not much happened in that fight, which saw both men largely refuse to engage.
After a first round that saw Vettori win 10-9 on all three judges’ scorecards, Cannonier turned up the heat and earned 10-8 cards in the second round. From there he ran away with the fight, winning the third, fourth, and fifth rounds. In the end he broke the middleweight record for most significant strikes landed with 241.
That had champion Israel Adesanya shocked, given Cannonier’s inaction during their bout.
“Bro…” he wrote on Twitter after Jared had his hand raised.
Bro…
— Israel Adesanya (@stylebender) June 18, 2023
Fellow middleweight contender Robert Whittaker was also suprised at what we saw from Jared Cannonier.
“I picked Cannonier to win this fight, but I didn’t pick this Cannonier,” he said during the ESPN post-fight show. “I didn’t envision seeing this pressure fighter Cannonier who just crowds and closing the gap. You saw during the fight Cannonier had Marvin’s hands a lot of the times because he was that close. I didn’t pick him coming out with this approach but it obviously worked to great effect.”
Cannonier has made it clear he’s fighting to get to a title shot, but that will be difficult given the way his last fight with Israel Adesanya went. Playing it strategic and trying to edge a decision over Adesanya may be a legit gameplan to defeat “The Last Stylebender,” but Cannonier didn’t hit that sweet spot where he was doing just a bit more than Izzy. The fans panned their fight and we doubt Adesanya is eager to have a repeat of their fight.
A few more record-breaking performances like Saturday’s against Vettori might change some minds, though.