Israel Adesanya won’t be losing any sleep if he ever has to rematch Paulo Costa and Marvin Vettori.
The two middleweight contenders (competing at light heavyweight due to Costa negotiating a fight-week change-up) battled for five exciting rounds in Saturday’s UFC Vegas 41 main event, with Vettori walking out with a close unanimous decision win.
Following up on his breakdown ahead of the contest, Adesanya also filmed himself watching the fight and uploaded the footage to YouTube. He began by criticizing Costa’s demeanor.
“It’s hard to look at [Costa] the same,” Adesanya said. “Like, all the [expletive] is just fugazi to me now. It’s always been, but it’s just like you’ve seent it.”
This was Costa’s first fight since challenging Adesanya for the UFC middleweight title at UFC 253 in September of last year. Costa was finished by strikes in the second round, the first loss of his pro career.
Vettori was also coming off of a loss to Adesanya. In his second fight against “The Last Stylebender,” Vettori lost a unanimous decision in the main event of UFC 263 this past June. Watching Vettori, Adesanya wasn’t impressed with him either.
“How does Vettori punch and kick with literally almost no threat behind them,” Adesanya said, analyzing Saturday’s action. “No pop, no sting.”
He went on to mock Costa for a rare show of wrestling in the third.
“Whoa, he shot for a f*cking double leg!” Adesanya said. “Top game, okay, let’s see. This is interesting. He’s gonna get swept. A guillotine. (unintelligible) Aw, what the f*ck was that? … Literally just a s*it show. That was horrible.”
Despite the back-and-forth nature of the contest, Adesanya was light with his praise and at what point appeared to fake sleeping. When someone off-camera remarked that he was catching some Zs during a “Fight of the Year contender,” Adesanya scoffed.
“I told you they’re both sh*t,” Adesanya said.
Adesanya was also asked if he had any pointers for Costa, who could be done at 185 pounds after the weight cut drama and the loss to Vettori. In his advice, he warned Costa not to try and emulate the City Kickboxing formula for success.
“[Costa] did right,” Adesanya said. “Inside leg kicks, I wish he did that more, I wish he stayed with the inside leg kicks because that was working. He tried to hip feint at one point but he it like, this close. It’s like, bro, this is what ‘Twist’ (coach Tristam Apikotoa) says, people try to copy what we do but they don’t understand the levels or the uses of what we’re doing. They just think, ‘That looks pretty. Everyone’s using that.’ They try to copy it, but it’s not the same.”