UFC middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya has revealed the reason why he rejected an offer from the UFC to serve as an opposing coach on the reboot of The Ultimate Fighter — in a season where he would have coached opposite the #7 rated contender, former welterweight title challenger, Darren Till.
Adesanya headlined UFC 263 last weekend at the Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona — battling with Trento-born contender, Marvin Vettori in a re-run of their UFC Fight Night Glendale clash back in April of 2018. Successfully defending his middleweight crown this time around, the City Kickboxing standout overcame Vettori for the second time in his career, via a rather one-sided 50-45 (x3) unanimous decision win.
The victory marked Adesanya’s return to the winner’s enclosure in tandem with his return to the middleweight ranks, following a brief light heavyweight excursion back in April at UFC 259, where he suffered a unanimous decision win against champion, Jan Blachowicz, in an unsuccessful bid to become a two-weight champion held simultaneously.
Reality TV show, The Ultimate Fighter recently return on network, ESPN for its 29th. installment, and features coaches, featherweight champion, Alexander Volkanovski and the #2 rated, Brian Ortega as the season’s opposing coaches, however, Adesanya claimed that he rejected an opportunity offered to him to serve as one of the season’s coaches, against the above-mentioned, brash, Till — detailing how he wasn’t happy with the prospect of a prolonged stay in Las Vegas to film the season, as well as his dislike of constant camera presence.
“I’ll tell you one thing, there’s a new season of TUF (The Ultimate Fighter) with my boy, Alex (Alexander) Volkanovski, coaching it, it’s gonna be dope, I think, it’s already, I think episode three is already coming out this week,” Adesanya said during a recent appearance on a podcast with comedians, Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh. “They did — breaking news, leaked, it got offered to me Darren Till, and instantly I said, ‘No’.“
“Personally, I don’t want cameras in my face that much and I don’t want to be stuck in (Las) Vegas for that long,” Adesanya said. “I just feel like it would come — I mean, what does it take to make good reality tv? Drama, a lot of drama and I’m a troll, Darren’s a troll. I feel like I would have to go to the lowest form of myself. The pranks that they’d play, I could go lower. And people don’t understand like, I take the high road a lot, but when it’s time to go low, limbo.“
Adesanya had called for a rematch with former undisputed middleweight champion, Robert Whittaker following his unanimous judging win over Vettori, so it seems a pairing against the #7 ranked Till will have to wait for the time being, particularly given the fact that the Liverpudlian is currently targeted to meet with the #5 rated, Derek Brunson for a potential UFC Fight Night London event on September 4.