Author: Phlippages
Nigerian born New Zealand fighter Israel Adesanya on Sunday morning (Nigerian time) retained his middle weight title against Jared Cannonier at the UFC 276 which took place at the T-Mobile in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The fight ended in a unanimous decision with the judges scoring the bout 49-46, 49-46 and 50-45 for the Last Stylebender.
Adesanya’s last fight also ended in a unanimous decision win over rival Robert Whittaker at UFC 271 in February.
“He had an excellent game plan; it was really hard to get my follow-ups going, my second phases going,” Adesanya said after he was declared the winner.
Adesanya made good use of the length of his arms to keep his Jared at a distance, dominating the first round.
In the second round, Adesanya came after his opponent very aggresively and the he didn’t give Jared any opportunity to breathe or throw punches back.
Cannonier best moment came when he occasionally tried to take down Adesanya and land a jab on him but the Adasanya was always resilient enough to fight back and land his own punches.
The fourth round did not change much as Jared Cannonier lacked the will to take the fight to Adesanya.
Fans started leaving the arena in the fifth round when it was clear that the Nigerian British-born fighter had won the contest.
The win is Adesanya’s twelfth consecutive victory as a middleweight in the UFC, only one behind the record set by UFC legend Anderson Silva.
“No one like him,” said the WWE legend and actor Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.
The 32 years old fighter was asked what his next step would be, having defeated most of the top Fighters in kickboxing.
Israel Adesanya called out Alex Pereira who holds two kickboxing win over him, saying, “our previous fight was an error on my part.”
“Like I said at the press conference, next time I punch you, you’ll be on skates and you’re gonna be frozen like Elsa. I’ll leave it at that.”
