Although he thought he won the fight, Marvin Vettori also felt he didn’t do enough over the course of 25 minutes.
Vettori suffered a lopsided unanimous decision defeat to Israel Adesanya in their middleweight title headliner at UFC 263 last night with all three judges scoring it 50-45 in favor of the champion.
Despite that, Vettori felt he won the fight as he was raising his hand while Bruce Buffer was reading the decision much to the amusement of Adesanya and many other observers.
In the end, it wasn’t to be for the Italian who did give props to Adesanya post-fight.
“Right after the fight, I thought I won,” Vettori told BT Sport (via Middle Easy). “He’s [Adesanya] like, ‘No, you didn’t win.’ But at the end of the day, it’s respect. We don’t like each other, but it’s respect.
“We’ve shared the Octagon for eight rounds now, for 40 minutes basically. At the end of the day, you’ve got to give some props.”
Vettori still felt 50-45 was the wrong call from the judges. However, he can only blame himself as he felt he could have done a lot more to get the victory despite landing a couple of takedowns.
“I think 50-45 was definitely not the right decision, but it is what it is,” Vettori said. “At the end of the day, I’m 27 years old. I’m going to go back to the hotel. I’m going to go and run. I’m going to do like a five-mile run. I didn’t even take a hot shower because I feel like I don’t deserve it. That’s how crazy I am. I’m going to go back and work and get ready for the next fight, you know?
“I had all the cards to beat him, but I didn’t. I said coming in I wouldn’t have left doubts, and even if I won, I would’ve left doubts. At the end of the day, I didn’t do enough.”
As for what’s next, Darren Till is an option especially as the pair were scheduled to fight only for the Briton to pull out with an injury. That said, Vettori is targeting Paulo Costa as his next opponent.
“I mean if he can show up, eventually,” Vettori added on fighting Till. “But to be honest, I would like to really destroy this drunk guy who can’t even stay off drinking. It’s ‘Borrachinha.’”