Reigning middleweight world champion Israel Adesanya opened up about the struggles of booking his UFC 293 clash with Sean Strickland.
On September 9, the promotion will return to The Land Down Under for a stacked event in Sydney, Australia. In the main event of the evening, ‘The Last Stylebender’ defends his 185-pound crown against often outspoken and always controversial middleweight contender, Sean Strickland.
Originally, Adesanya had his sights set on squaring off with the division’s top-ranked contender Dricus Du Plessis, but ‘Stillknocks’ was unable to make the quick turnaround after his shocking second-round knockout of Robert Whittaker at UFC 290. It was then that the promotion hit the panic button, searching for the next best option to keep their title fight intact.
Enter Sean Strickland, a fighter who is undeniably talented inside the Octagon, but his penchant for creating controversy with his controversial and, at times, downright vile views on various subjects has made him both loved and hated by the MMA community. As a result, the promotion was hesitant to pull the trigger on promoting him to the UFC 293 main event.
Israel Adesanya Pushed Hard for Sean Strickland to Get the Spotlight at UFC 293
In an interview with It’s Time For Sports on YouTube, Israel Adesanya revealed that it was he who pushed for ‘Tarzan’ to get the nod. He also suggested that the promotion was afraid Strickland would embarrass the company with his colorful commentary if given such a bright spotlight.
“He’s an idiot and you know, the UFC don’t want him embarrassing the company. But yeah, that’s all I’ll say about that so he should thank me,” Adesanya said. “He should really thank me for making him get the fight. I pushed for it, he (Eugene Bareman) knows what happened behind the scenes and I pushed for it and I’m glad the UFC trusted me to listen to me.
Despite the relatively short notice announcement of Strickland’s injection into the main event, Adesanya’s coach Eugene Bareman added that knowing the opponent was never a concern. It was all about making the date regardless of who the promotion put in front of them.
“We concentrated on the date and we talked about that very early on, we’re like okay at this stage, there’s no opponent locked in but it don’t matter,” Bareman said. “Just put a name on a bit of paper and put it in front of us and we’ll be there on the date” (h/t MMA News).