Aljamain Sterling (Lasseur)
UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling credits Israel Adesanya’s performance at UFC 276 amidst criticism from the MMA community
Aljamain Sterling has a juxtaposing take on the main event of UFC 276 between Israel Adesanya and Jared Cannonier. While fans of the sport and MMA community, in general, were crestfallen by the lack of action in the main event, Sterling pointed out the reason why fighters train hard every single day.
UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya made his fifth successful title defense today at UFC 276. He outclassed and outpointed Jared Cannonier in a slightly underwhelming contest. Although the fight did not live up to everyone’s expectations, it was Izzy’s groundbreaking entrance that was the talk of the town.
The UFC commentary booth went off for a few moments as they gasped in the historic entrance they were witnessing live. Adesanya scored a unanimous decision victory against Jared Cannonier. The fight was predominantly a striking contest in the champion’s desired range. He stagnated Cannonier’s movements with stiff jabs. To Jared’s credit, he fought a smart fight too. Whenever Adesanya tried to launch phase 2 of his attacks after set-ups in phase 1, Cannonier would move out of trouble. In the end, Izzy’s leg kicks, body kicks, jabs, and overall accuracy was enough for him to win on the judge’s scorecards.
Ahead of UFC 276, Izzy had said that he’s channelling his dark side, particularly for this fight. Although he kept the curtains draped on his entrance, he surprised everyone when he made one of the best octagon walkouts ever. Fans salivated and expressed their appreciation for Adesanya’s star power and showmanship.
Sterling presented his case for Israel Adesanya suggesting that not every fight can pack end-to-end action. He reiterated that even though it was not the fanciest fight, Izzy still got the job done, and retained his throne.
Stering said, “You’re not going to be able to go out there and have those barnburners every single time. That’s just my personal opinion. And you guys gotta understand – It is a world title fight. There’s big consequences.”“It’s like, why even train for weeks and weeks and weeks if you guys just want us to go out there and just slang-and-bang and not use our fight IQ that we worked on the entire week, weeks I should say, leading up to the fight.”
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