"I flipped him off" - Israel Adesanya reveals times when he took it personally
Israel Adesanya recently revealed that he had bad blood with a few of his opponents.
In a recent interview with Brian J. Roberts of All Goats TV, the reigning middleweight champ discussed the times he took his opponents' remarks personally.
First on his list was Derek Brunson. Adesanya recounted his fight with Brunson at UFC 230, where the American allegedly tugged at Adesanya's shorts twice. 'The Last Stylebender' stated that he was infuriated when Brunson refused to accept the accusations:
"When Derek Brunson was lying that he didn't pull my shorts and he blatantly pulled my shorts twice. And he was lying to the referee like, 'I didn't do s***.' I took that personally and I flipped him off."
'The Last Stylebender' narrated another incident where Paulo Costa's comments on his earrings during the press conference at UFC 253 angered him:
"When Paulo Costa... said some stupid s*** about my earring. And I took that personally... This was at the press conference by the beach. And he said, 'Oh, my mother have ring like that.' I was gonna say something like, 'Yeah I got it from her last night,' but I didn't at the time cause I was trying to be polite. But I shouldn't have been. I took that personally."
Watch Adesanya's full interview with Brian J. Roberts of All Goats TV below:
Israel Adesanya believes debutant fighters in UFC should get more pay
During the same interview, Israel Adesanya claimed that debutant fighters should get paid more as they had other expenses to cover.
The middleweight champ stated that fighters have to pay their managers, trainers, and sparring partners. These fighters will be forced to work other part-time jobs to make ends meet if they are only paid $10,000. This, according to Israel Adesanya, is a negative reflection on the fight game:
"A guy starting his first fight in the UFC should not be fighting for, you know, whatever it is, 12 grand or 10 grand. Yeah, 10 to 12, something like that. Yeah, they shouldn't be fighting for that. They should be fighting to make enough to be able to pay their manager, to be able to train full time, and not have to work a second or third job. That's just embarrassing to the sport, I feel. That's embarrassing to the UFC that a high-level athlete should be doing that."
Israel Adesanya on UFC fighter pay 🗣
"I'm not saying pay debutants some crazy money. I'm just saying pay them enough to be able to train, feed their family and not have a second or third job."
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