Israel Adesanya successfully defended his UFC Middleweight Championship title for the third time after gaining the vote of the three judges as he faced Marvin Vettori for the second time. The two met in 2018 where Izzy was only able to gain two of the judges’ votes to win the match. But three years later, all the judges agreed that Adesanya was the better fighter. This is his first win of the year after losing to Jan Blachowicz after facing him back in February in the light heavyweight division.
The first round started with much power from Vettori who was quickly met with kicks from Adesanya. Vettori longed for a takedown but Izzy was always quick to avoid going under by sticking to the fence, making things harder for the Italian Dream. Adesanya continues landing his kicks, mocking Vettori in the process, in his usual fashion. Vettori then tried to take control in the second round as he avoided most of Adesanya’s kicks, delivering kicks of his own.
Adesanya switched things up in the third round, gaining his strength back. At this point, Adesanya already knew that the only way to wear his opponent out was through kicks. Vettori had Adesanya in a half guard position and gave the champ quite a tough time, but Adesanya was able to free himself. Later in the round, Izzy drops Vettori with a leg kick and manages to land a low blow just before the round ended.
The next two rounds continued with more low kicks from Adesanya, this time making it harder as he was determined to weaken Vettori as much as possible. But Vettori kept pressing forward and managed to stay on his feet down to the fifth round. Izzy also took some hits too. It was a fight of two people who seemed evenly matched, although Izzy had the upper hand as was evident by the final vote, where the three judges gave the fight “50-45’ in favour of Adesanya.
After the fight, Israel called out Robert Whittaker, the man he fought to win the UFC Middleweight Championship title, calling for a rematch.
Written by: Leon Osamor
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