Deron Winn: My Wrestling Would Have Caused Israel Adesanya Problems
UFC middleweight Deron Winn believes his wrestling would have caused more problems for Israel Adesanya than Kelvin Gastelum’s.
Adesanya defeated Gastelum in a five-round war last month to capture the interim middleweight title. He has now set up a meeting with Robert Whittaker, which is expected to take place later this year in Sydney, Australia.
Winn, meanwhile, is getting ready to make his promotional debut at UFC Greenville on June 22 against Bruno Silva. Despite just five professional bouts, the protege of heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier is confident in his abilities to succeed. Especially when he claims four or five guys rejected the chance to face him:
“If I start beating dudes up, only the top guys are going to take fights with me, but I’m okay with that,” Winn said on The MMA Hour.
“Like I said, I’m very confident and I have a lot to learn and a lot of experience to get in the Octagon, but I truly believe sooner than later I’ll be ready for anybody and I already think I’m world class, so I’m personally not scared to get in there with anybody. But that’s just who I am and that’s who I’ve always been.”
Winn Offers Something Different
Winn is so confident that he was already visualizing how he would have fought “The Last Stylebender” in Gastelum’s place. Gastelum did have his moments against Adesanya. However, he failed to impose his wrestling on the Nigerian striker, landing just one out of an attempted nine takedowns.
Winn, on the other hand, believes he would have had more success than Gastelum due to his high-level wrestling pedigree:
“I think that I have something to offer that we’ve never seen,” Winn explained. “I have a lot of really interesting takedowns and I finish very well and I always have.
“That’s that difference between me and a guy like Kelvin Gastelum—who I respect very highly, I think he’s a stud—but the difference between me and him is I’m getting Izzy down to his butt more than he did because I wrestled at a very high level and I’ve learned how to maneuver these guys to a finish that only one percent of the world has.”
