Israel Adesanya had a question for The MMA Hour host Luke Thomas about trash talk during his interview on Monday’s edition of the show.
“Have you ever seen me, Luke, talk sh*t about someone after their fight?” the fighter known as “The Last Style Bender” asked. “They’re trying to get some shine because I’m the guy in the spotlight.”
What prompted this question was the steady flow of chirping from other middleweights following Adesanya’s unanimous decision victory over the legendary Anderson Silva in the main event of UFC 234 on Saturday night in Melbourne.
The victory capped a remarkable run of five victories in five UFC fights in a year. But to paraphrase Georges St-Pierre, others were not impressed with his performance.
Starting with former middleweight champion Chris Weidman, who twice finished Silva in 2013.
While that’s not the most scorching hot take ever delivered on Twitter, Adesanya nonetheless disagreed. Adesanya hinted that perhaps the former champ, who has been knocked out in four of his past five fights, is the one who is overrated.
“I didn’t pay any mind to Chris Weidman [saying] I’m overrated,” Adesanya said. “OK, why, because he beat Silva a little bit more handily than I did. You know. I’m overrated. Interesting. I could say the same thing about him. Heavily. Yeah, When I get this belt in my next fight, they can all line up and they can find out how overrated I am. And Chris Weidman, that’s his opinion, that’s his opinion, and I don’t have to pay any attention to it. But yeah, overrated, that’s interesting. Hmmm.”
While Adesanya may have held back on the straight-up insults with the former champion, he didn’t hold his tongue responding to Costa.
Like Adesanya, Costa is an undefeated knockout artist. But Adesanya believes his striking is on a whole different plane than “Borrachina”’s, and he’s not shy in expressing it.
“Now, what’s his name, little juice monkey, Paula,” Adesanya said. “Paula. My bitch. What did he say again? He said something about I wouldn’t last two rounds with him. See he, Silva, that fight with me and him was just physical chess. Was the highest level of striking. It was just, if you know about footwork, intricacies of footwork, it was beautiful to watch. For a guy like Paula, he’s a walking punching bag, walking punching bag, juiced up, blown up and throws body shots and heavy, heavy, heavy. Bring that ass over here.”
Costa has his biggest test upcoming when he meets Yoel Romero at UFC Miami, and Adesanya believes Costa should focus a bit less on him and a bit more on his fight.
“Uriah Hall was just jabbing him up,” Adesanya said. “How the f*ck are you going to hit me with those little T-Rex arms. If I’m behind those jabs, the things that I follow up will be much, much different, so, yeah. A guy like that he should just focus on his fight he’s got next Yoel Romero and yeah, let them talk.”
At the end of the day, Adesanya knows MMA has more catty gossip than anything this side of a barbershop, so he vows to do his best to ignore what his haters are saying.
“I don’t give a f*ck about what these guys are doing,” Adesanya said. “I just give a f*ck about me. And anytime I do something, any time I breathe. These guys tweet, say something stupid.”