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Israel Adesanya has said he doesn't believe some of the statements being made by Robert Whittaker.
This Saturday night in Houston, Israel Adesanya will defend the UFC middleweight title against Robert Whittaker. It'll mark the second meeting between the two rivals, with Adesanya previously defeating Whittaker via knockout back at UFC 243 in 2019.
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Whittaker, in the eyes of many, has improved dramatically in the three fights he's won since losing to Adesanya. The expectation is that this will be a much closer fight.
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'The Reaper' himself has been suggesting that he has the skill set to beat the champion among making other comments. However, 'The Last Stylebender' has questioned some of his remarks in a recent interview with TSN.
“I’m glad he’s accepted what I was telling him in 2019, which was that, ‘You are acting out of character’ and he wasn’t being true to himself. This is free advice I gave him and he chose to spit on it and yeah, he paid dearly for it. I think, kind of like Alcoholics Anonymous, the first step is accepting, so he’s accepting that and that makes him dangerous. But, he’s saying all the right things but I just don’t really believe him. It’s him that has to believe his own s***, so yeah, good on him.”
Catch Israel Adesanya's interview with TSN below:
Israel Adesanya's latest performance
While he may have fallen to Jan Blachowicz in his attempt to "dare to be great" at light heavyweight, that doesn't mean the Nigerian-New Zealander is coming into this fight with no momentum.
His most recent outing took place back at UFC 263 in June 2021 when he took part in a rematch against Marvin Vettori. 'The Italian Dream' was unable to really assert his dominance over the king of the middleweights, with Adesanya cruising to a decision win and maintaining his place atop the 185-pound mountain in the process.
If he's going to hold onto the belt beyond the weekend, he may need to implement a similar strategy against a challenger who has a whole lot of tricks up his sleeve.
