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No, Israel Adesanya was able to outstrike Marvin Vettori back when they fought each other at UFC on Fox 29: Poirier vs Gaethje.
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According to the official stats of the fight, Israel Adesanya landed 57/123 significant strikes to Marvin Vettori's 46/154. 'The Last Stylebender' landed a total of 67 of 134 strikes while Marvin Vettori landed 60 of 169 strikes.
However, Marvin Vettori executed 2 successful takedowns out of 6 attempts while Israel Adesanya was unable to take the Italian to the floor.
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The stats of the fight clearly indicate that although Israel Adesanya defeated 'The Italian Dream', Vettori made sure that the victory was not a cakewalk for his Nigerian opponent.
Adesanya's victory over Marvin Vettori in April of 2018 was only the second win for the then-undefeated Israel Adesanya under the UFC banner.
The fight was proof that Adesanya had a thoroughly underdeveloped ground game. Marvin Vettori, however, chose to neglect this fact and continued to trade strikes with Adesanya in the first two rounds.
The absence of takedown attempts in the first two rounds allowed Israel Adesanya to take the lead in the fight. The Nigerian employed his skillful and intelligent striking by attacking both the head and the body. Adesanya regularly used inside kicks to keep Vettori at bay and employed his reach advantage to the fullest as he mixed up kicks and punches to further his lead on the judges' scorecards.
In response, Marvin Vettori mixed up his striking to land shots on Adesanya. However, he was unable to reciprocate the fakes and feigns that Adesanya abundantly used, thus losing the edge in the stand-up battle.
An absence of wrestling may have cost Marvin Vettori the win against Israel Adesanya
In round three of the fight, it became clear that Israel Adesanya would win as long as Marvin Vettori did not secure a finish. It was at this point in time that Vettori began executing takedown attempts.
Due to a lack of technique, Israel Adesanya was once taken down. In the one round that Vettori did decide to wrestle, he gained a ground control time of 3:18. This begs the question: Could the fight have panned out differently if Marvin Vettori had added wrestling to the mix in all three rounds?
Marvin Vettori is now reportedly the frontrunner to face Israel Adesanya for the title
ESPN reporter Ariel Helwani recently tweeted an update regarding the UFC's future plans for the middleweight division. According to Helwani, Israel Adesanya is will return to defend his middleweight title at the UFC event on June 12th.
Although former champ Robert Whittaker was expected to fight Izzy in a rematch to reclaim his middleweight, the timeline does not support Bobby Knuckles's bid for a title. Whittaker just fought Kelvin Gastelum on April 17th in a 5-round bout that went the distance. Therefore, fighting on June 12th will be too quick a turnover for the Australian.
