Israel Adesanya isn’t willing to fight Robert Whittaker, eyes Jan Blachowicz instead

Israel Adesanya isn’t willing to fight Robert Whittaker, eyes Jan Blachowicz instead
Israel Adesanya

Israel Adesanya is right now in the “poster boy” zone in the UFC. The Nigerian-born New Zealand mixed martial artist recently defeated Brazilian, Paulo Costa at UFC 253 handing Costa his first defeat in his professional MMA career. After the match Adesanya and Jon Jones had a nasty twitter spat running for weeks; it has subsided now as Jon has turned his attention towards the GOAT debate.

On the other hand, Robert Whittaker, the Aussie who lost his UFC middleweight championship to Israel Adesanya, is a renewed man. He absolutely dominated Jared Cannonier in the recently concluded UFC 254. Once Whittaker won, speculations began arising that he will definitely face Adesanya again for the middleweight title in a rematch. But, it doesn’t seem like it would happen as Eugene Bareman, Adesanya’s coach has told that the Nigerian isn’t willing to fight Whittaker.

“Israel has no interest in fighting Robert again” – Eugene Bareman

Eugene Bareman (L) and Israel Adesanya (R)

Speaking to NZ Herald, Eugene Bareman said, “It was not the win we were looking for. Israel feels like Cannonier is the next challenge at middleweight for him, unfortunately, that didn’t happen for us. Israel has no interest in fighting Robert again. Honestly for us, it feels like that Robert fight just happened yesterday. I don’t know whether that’s because of the magnitude of that event or what, but that honestly seems fresh in our minds.“

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It looked like Eugene clearly poured out Izzy’s intentions, as Izzy once mentioned that he doesn’t believe in rematches, saying what is done, is done. He even mentioned that he doesn’t intend to fight Alex Pereira again even though Alex has defeated Adesanya.

Speaking about a possible cracker of a contest with Jan Blachowicz, the light heavyweight champion, Bareman said, “When you look at the landscape at middleweight, there’s nothing. We need the next challenge and, for us, that’s moving up to 205 and fighting Blachowicz. That’s the next biggest challenge in front of us and that’s the one we want. We have put the feelers out and we’re going to action negotiations this week.”

Do you want Adesanya to face Blachowicz next? Or should he face the renewed Whittaker and then eye for Jan?

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