At the UFC 293 post-fight press conference, not long removed from Sean Strickland’s upset win over Israel Adesanya in Sydney, UFC CEO Dana White said, and I quote, “I think you do the rematch, absolutely. The rematch is interesting.” Those were his exact words and you can hear them for yourself right here.
Unfortunately, “stupid (expletive) websites” (like us) reported it.
Sorry about that!
“If you remember that night, people said, ‘Well, what do you think? You think there’s a rematch?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, the rematch sounds great,’” White told reporters during the “Contender Series” press conference. “I saw the stupid f*cking sh*t that was written by all these stupid f*cking websites. Never once did I say, ‘Yes, we’re going to f*cking do this rematch.’ I said, ‘Yeah, rematch sounds – you know, we’ll see what happens.’ There’s obviously lots of options out there, and we’ll see what happens. But, yes, I’m still not opposed to an Israel rematch. We’ll see how it goes.”
Maybe he didn’t want to answer to this fired-up contender.
Adesanya already earned an immediate rematch when he dropped his middleweight title to Alex Pereira at UFC 281 late last year, reclaiming the crown by stopping “Poatan” at UFC 287 the following April. Giving “The Last Stylebender” first crack at Strickland means benching the winner of Paulo Costa vs. Khamzat Chimaev, who collide at UFC 294 in Abu Dhabi.
Maybe instead, Adesanya can “take a little break” to allow for “fresh matchups.”