Israel Adesanya isn’t proud of his fight with Yoel Romero.
The much-maligned contest headlined UFC 248 in 2020, when Adesanya was in his first reign as middleweight champion and Romero was viewed as one of the division’s most dangerous contenders despite experiencing mixed results in the cage at the time. Unfortunately for the fighters and their fans, Adesanya and Romero never clicked, and what ensued was 25 minutes nearly devoid of meaningful action, with Adesanya eventually winning a tepid decision.
Adesanya recalled the fight on a recent YouTube breakdown, following Romero’s recent bare-knuckle boxing loss to Darren Till.
“I had one of the most exciting fights in the history of the planet [Adesanya vs. Kelvin Gastelum] that’s inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame, but I also had one of the most boring fights in the history of the company alongside Yoel Romero,” Adesanya said. “We’re both dangerous men, when he hit me with that zinger, I seen four in front of me, and I thought, ‘OK, he’s going to come in for the kill.’ So whoever comes, if I saw four of them, then it would have been four, then I’d have to pick which one, but he didn’t.”
Prior to their fight, Adesanya and Romero had both compiled impressive highlight reels full of knockouts and flashy maneuvers. However, fans saw none of that when they actually fought each other, and Adesanya blames himself as much as he does Romero for the duel being a dud.
“He just played the game and yeah, it was a boring fight,” Adesanya said. “But he’s a dangerous man. There’s a reason he didn’t want to come close and there’s a reason I didn’t want to risk again getting hit by that zinger, so yeah, shout out to him.”
Adesanya’s video was primarily focused on breaking down UFC 332, another event facing criticism from media and fans, primarily for its lackluster headliner, a thrown-together vacant flyweight championship bout between Natalia Silva and Wang Cong.
In Adesanya’s opinion, it’s not so much about the quality of the main event nor the rest of the fighters on the card, but the lack of meaningful narratives.
“People are saying it’s the worst card in UFC history,” Adesanya said. “Actually looking at the card, that might not really be the case. The only thing is that it lacks a bit of star power and also storylines. This is how you get people involved, the lead-ups, the Embeddeds of fight week, the Countdown, the fighters doing their own vlogs. The UFC also doing little segments for the fighters leading up to the fight or months into the fight.
“So yeah, the stories, there’s no storyline. Because even though you guys want to clown WWE, you love a storyline. Everyone likes a storyline.”
