White On Teixeira’s Title Shot Plea: ‘He’s Not Wrong’

Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC

‘He’s not wrong,’ but there’s no way Glover Teixeira is getting the next light heavyweight title shot unless something happens to Israel Adesanya.

The UFC once again put on another great night of fights inside the APEX arena for UFC Vegas 13 aka UFC on ESPN+ 40. But unfortunately for Glover Teixeira and the rest of the gladiators that warred it out, it looks like the event didn’t garner the kind of interest or viewership it deserved in hindsight. That’s just the reality of the situation looking at the visible metrics on the internet.

That reality is the second biggest obstacle standing in front of Glover Teixeira getting a light heavyweight title shot next after his win over Thiago Santos (watch the finish here).

The first? Israel Adesanya, the middleweight champion. The man whose last pay-per-view against Paulo Costa moved over 700,000 units. The man whose quest for the 205 pound belt is more of a pitstop en route to an insane superfight with Jon Jones than anything else.

With so much money to be made on all that, there’s simply no way Teixeira’s victory last night earns him the next title shot. But after his win, Glover made his case.

“Dana White, come on man!” Teixeira said. “I’m old man over here. You gonna give the shot to Adesanya and make me wait, man? Come on man, five fights in a row beating these young guys, it’s not easy! Give me that title shot, man!”

“My last five fights, I got four finishes,” Glover added during the post-fight press conference. “Top contenders, the last two guys went to decisions with Jon Jones and I was able to finish them. I want to be able to prove myself.”

UFC president Dana White couldn’t disagree with any of that.

“He’s not wrong, you know what I mean?” White said. “‘I deserve that shot,’ he’s been here forever, he’s on a streak, he looked great tonight. And what’s funny is every time I count this guy out and think ‘I dunno if he’s got it,’ he proves me wrong. He looked incredible tonight.”

“It’s something we need to figure out,” White said when asked if there was a possibility of Teixeira getting next. “But I heard him and I agree with him, and I’m taking him serious. I’m not going to doubt this guy any more.”

Just a reminder that “He’s not wrong,” is something people say when someone is right but it doesn’t change the reality of the situation. The reality of the situation is Israel Adesanya fighting Jan Blachowicz for the light heavyweight title next.

So that leaves us with wondering what’s next for Glover. Does he sit out and wait for Blachowicz vs. Adesanya to go down and then theoretically get the next shot?

“Right now I just want to eat a pizza and relax,” Glover said when asked at the post-fight press conference. “We’ll see what happens. I don’t want to make a decision right now, to talk about fight right now. My face is hurting. Let’s see what’s going on.”

If Adesanya beats Blachowicz, there’s the Jon Jones superfight and contenders at middleweight jockying for their turn at the champ. Teixeira could end up eating a lot of pizza waiting for things to settle down at the top of the light heavyweight division. It’s not a particularly fair situation for anyone unable to pull half a million pay-per-view buys, but I’m not wrong.