Israel Adesanya Is On Standby For Whittaker vs. Gastelum Fight
Israel Adesanya is on standby for Robert Whittaker and Kelvin Gastelum’s UFC middleweight title fight.
Whittaker and Gastelum will coach opposite one another on The Ultimate Fighter Season 28 (TUF 28). After the show’s conclusion, the pair will clash with the 185-pound title on the line. Adesanya would love to be the UFC’s backup plan in case things don’t work out.
Adesanya told Submission Radio he knows the UFC pays fighters to be on standby for fights. In his last fight, the main event of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 27 Finale, Thiago Santos was put on standby after Brad Tavares suffered an apparent ankle injury.
“Stylebender” called it “easy money”:
“Cause you never know – someone might slip on a banana peel,” Adesanya said. “(Expletive) happens. You know, another case of horse meat or whatever, Mexican supplements. It’s happened so many times.
“It’s easy money anyway. What, I can get paid to make weight? If I can fight, sure, I’ll do that as well. But paid to make weight? Why not.”
A Veteran Challenge
Before he can think about that, however, Adesanya has quite a tough test ahead of him. He’ll fight Derek Brunson at UFC 230 form Madison Square Garden in November. The pair had a heated staredown at the UFC’s 25th Anniversary Press Conference:
“If not for (UFC President) Dana (White) holding him back, he would have leaned right into a punch or an uppercut or something, cause I had my fist on his chest,” Adesanya said.
“So that’s exactly how he’s gonna fight. You see me, I establish the range, boom, fist on his chest. And you see him just rushing in even with Dana in the middle, and Dana had to hold him back.
“That’s exactly how he’s gonna fight. It’s already said and done. He does his habits and my habit is winning. And winning’s a habit, so I’m gonna keep winning.”
Adesanya said he hopes Brunson lasts into the second round. He wants to see the “broken” look on his adversary’s face before the commencement of the next round:
“I hope he goes to the second round, cause I wanna look across the cage from him, and there’s a moment when you look across the cage from them after the first round and you can just see they’re already broken or half of them is broken,” Adesanya said.
“I just want to see that in his face and him know that he’s (expletive), and then I can finish him. But I don’t know, he might not last the first. So, we’ll see.”
