Israel Adesanya Addresses Fan Criticism Ahead Of UFC 281: “It Takes Two To Tango”

Reigning UFC middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya, knows some fans haven’t been fond of some of his recent performances. 

Adesanya spoke with journalist Ariel Helwani on his show The MMA Hour on Monday ahead of his showdown with Alex Pereira at UFC 281 this weekend and gave his perspective on what went wrong in his latest bout with Jared Cannonier at UFC 276 back in July.

“[I was] upset at myself for what I wanted to do,” Adesanya said (h/t MMA Fighting). “People mistake it. This is not about other people. This is about me. I did the Undertaker walkout and I had this Miyamoto Musashi mentality like I’m going to make him wait because I don’t think it’s going to last long. Then I get there and I’m a little bit frustrated during the fight trying to figure out how to take this guy. I’ve said it many times, his corner, wow, MMA Lab beautiful, because they saved him. They’d see things I was setting up and call it and I’m just like, ‘F***, OK, they can see that coming.’ So they saved him a lot and he’s a good student for listening to them as well. For me, it was just the pressure I put on myself because it was International Fight Week, I’m like, ‘Damn, I want to f****** take this to the next level after I smoke this guy.’ And I felt like I didn’t smoke this guy, but I beat him quite easily. Easily. So for me, it’s the expectations I put on myself, that’s what.”

He continued on to explain why he views some of the fan backlash he’s received as unfair. 

“I think so,” Adesanya said. “It takes two to tango, so if you want to blame me, you’ve got to blame the other guy. Like I said, you look at the fifth round, how it went, I was pressing the action. I was trying to fight. I was touching him always. [I was criticized] because I’m the champ, I’m the great one. I’ve talked to everyone about this, even our boy Georges [St-Pierre]…we talked in-depth about this kind of stuff and it happened to him, it happened to Silva, even Jon Jones it happened to him. In boxing, it’s happened to a lot of greats, when you’re just so great and you keep winning, people want to shake the snow globe a little bit so they just start throwing s*** and look at what sticks.”

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