Israel Adesanya doesn’t see Chris Weidman posing much of a challenge to him.
After UFC middleweight champion Adesanya (20-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) recently dusted Paulo Costa in the second round at UFC 253, former UFC middleweight champion Weidman called him out.
The two went back-and-forth on social media, but speaking to MMA Junkie, Adesanya addressed how he sees a potential matchup between him and Weidman (15-5 MMA, 11-5 UFC) playing out.
“It was a bit weird for me, but I already have him figured out,” Adesanya told MMA Junkie. “I have it figured out right down to how I’m going to take him out. Let him bring his double leg, let him bring his single leg, let him try and force me to the fence. He’s not going to strike with me. Come strike with me – one thing that he has going good for him is, one thing he said before he knocked out Anderson Silva, at the weigh-ins, he looked at him dead in the eyes and said, ‘I’m not scared of you. I’m not scared of you.’ He said that over and over to him; I remember that.”
Adesanya recounted running into Weidman years ago, where the two had a drunken, but cordial, exchange. Known to keep mental receipts of all his encounters, Adesanya recalls telling Weidman, who was champion at the time, that he’d see him soon.
But a lot has changed since then, with Weidman losing five of his past seven and Adesanya skyrocketing to stardom by capturing the title and defending it twice.
Considering where both men currently stand in their careers, Adesanya doesn’t think a fight between them makes sense right now and sees himself taking out the former champion with relative ease.
Although Weidman recently snapped a two-fight losing skid with a unanimous decision win over Omari Akhmedov at UFC on ESPN+ 32 in August, Adesanya still thinks he has some work to do before the two could meet.
“I told him, ‘I look forward to fighting you one day,’ because I actually thought he would be at the top for a while, but he unfortunately hasn’t been doing well lately,” Adesanya said. “Not that he can’t come back. Look at Jan Blachowicz; he came back and now he’s the champion. But yeah, I’m just saying, I’ve studied these mother(expletives), they think this is a (expletive) game.
“Weidman is already done. That fight will end in the first round if it happens, but you’ve got to get some wins first, bro. A few wins first, yeah.”