UFC: Israel Adesanya Isn’t Afraid Of Yoel Romero

At UFC 248, Yoel Romero will get another chance to win the UFC middleweight title, when he challenges Israel Adesanya in the main event.

The initial fan reaction to the fight announcement was ‘but Romero is coming off two losses’. This may be true. However, UFC president Dana White reminded fans at the UFC 246 post fight press conference, that no one wants to fight Yoel, and Israel could easily have avoided him.

“Nobody wants to fight Yoel Romero, nobody does,” Dana stated. “Believe me, we make the phones calls, nobody wants to fight Yoel Romero. Israel wants to fight him. Israel feels that his legacy will not be complete if he doesn’t beat Yoel Romero. How do you not respect that?”

Then if you also remember that although Romero has lost three of his last four fights, all three were razor close decisions, that the judges could easily have given him on a different night. Two of which were also against the former 185lbs champion, Robert Whittaker. Who incidentally hasn’t looked the same ever since. There’s a consensus that ‘Yoel Romero doesn’t win UFC titles, he just takes years off your career’.

There is also the fact that the true number one contender, Paulo Costa, is recovering from surgery to his bicep. Making Adesanya vs Romero make even more sense.

But whichever way you look at it, Yoel Romero is a scary man. As Dana pointed out, no one wants to fight him. Darren Till has been joking about it, ever since he moved up to middleweight.

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For Israel Adesanya however, he can’t understand why everyone is afraid to fight Romero.

“Why is everyone so scared of this human? He is human at the end of the day, he’s just another guy who bleeds if you cut him. He sweats and he gasses out, I don’t gas out,” Adesanya told Yahoo! Sports (as transcribed by BJPenn.com)

“I can control where the fight goes as well, ’cause of my footwork. Wrestling doesn’t always start straight away from the clinch. It starts from the feet, where your feet are placed, and he’s flatfooted. I am not, I have really good footwork, and also, when he gets his hands on you. It’s hard to get your hands on me when you can’t see me. He keeps saying ‘I see you soon boy.’ No, you won’t.”


UFC 248 goes down on March 7th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. And Adesanya will go into the headline fight not only as the defending UFC middleweight champion, but also as the holder of Halberg Award for New Zealand’s Sportsman of the Year. ‘The Last Stylebender’ is the first fighter to have ever won the prestigious award.

Who do you think will leave Las Vegas the undisputed UFC middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya or Yoel Romero?


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