Israel Adesanya Dismisses Trilogies with Whittaker and Vettori, Expects Strickland-Pereira Winner

No matter what happens at UFC 276, Israel Adesanya wants some fresh blood. Adesanya (22-1, 11-1 UFC) is headlining the upcoming Ultimate Fighting Championship card, putting his middleweight championship on the line against Jared Cannonier. After defending his title twice in 2020, Adesanya attempted last year to win gold in the 205-pound division but fell short, dropping a decision to Jan Blachowicz at UFC 259. Now, Adesanya is exclusively focused on ruling the middleweight division and has already set his sights on his next title challenger.

Speaking in his role as a global brand ambassador for crypto casino and sports betting platform Stake.com ahead of the Cannonier fight, “The Last Stylebender” said that in case of victory, he would like to face the winner of the Sean Strickland vs. Alex Pereira matchup, which will also go down at UFC 276.

“Depend on who wins between Sean Strickland and Alex Pereira,” Adesanya said. “It depends on how they win, if they might be able to fight in time or whatever. So yeah, I just want some new blood and fresh meat so I can beat it.”

In his last two assignments, Adesanya outpointed Marvin Vettori and Robert Whittaker at UFC 263 and UFC 271, respectively. Both were rematches for the City Kickboxing titleholder, who edged Vettori via split decision in April 2018 and stopped Whittaker with punches in October 2019. “The Italian Dream” and “Bobby Knuckles” are paired to collide at the upcoming UFC Fight Night 209 in Paris, France. While both contestants seem interested in a third fight with Adesanya, the champion is not.

“Yeah, I've read those books twice already,” Adesanya said. "I don't like reading the same book over and over again. It's kind of boring, so yeah. Um, they can just move up to light heavyweight. They'll drop down to 170 and see what's going on, but to find me again, they're gonna have to do something really spectacular. So yeah, I don't really wanna read those books again.”

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(00:08) Teaming up with Stake
(00:45) His training camp for Cannonier
(01:21) Mimicking Cannonier’s fighting style
(02:12) His prediction for the fight
(02:24) Focusing on the middleweight division
(03:41) The next fighter who should fight for the belt
(04:04) Excluding facing Whittaker or Vettori
(04:32) Outro

Tudor Leonte started writing about mixed martial arts in 2013 for Italian media outlets. His journey with Sherdog began in 2018 and he now covers One Championship and countless European shows. You can follow him on Twitter @MrTudorLeonte.