Israel Adesanya is one of the most flamboyant and extravagant UFC champions ever. However, he has taken a more outspoken approach to dealing with his opponents lately. Adesanya’s Social media antics were not taken well by some fans after his middleweight title win against Alex Pereira. Moreover, he also went after Dricus Du Plessis for a potential fight. Du Plessis was playing mind games with ‘The Stylebender’ regarding his African heritage and the champion was visibly unsettled by it. This reminded him of a similar approach he had taken up against Robert Whittaker which now ‘Izzy’ regrets.
Israel Adesanya faced ‘The Reaper‘ twice in a matter of three years. Their rivalry was quite fierce and the Kiwi fighter went after Whittaker for living in Australia and claiming to be a Kiwi fighter. Israel Adesanya himself claims to be a proud Kiwi fighter.
However, when Adesanya was fighting for the Glory Kickboxing organization, he claimed to be a proud Chinese fighter, even donning their national flag before the fights. Whereas, while cutting his promo talk with Du Plessis inside the octagon ‘Izzy’ spoke about his African heritage. His African heritage was attacked and questioned by Du Plessis which made the fans reminiscent of how Adesanya attacked Whittaker’s Kiwi heritage.
Israel Adesanya changed tunes on Robbert Whittaker
During his appearance on the Halfcast podcast, Israel Adesanya admitted that he was wrong to question Whittaker who is a Moari’s heritage as an Kiwi. Amidst the controversial feud with Du Plessis, Adesanya realized that he should have respected Whittaker and stayed away from questioning his heritage.
Adesanya said, “Funny enough, someone brought it to my attention that I did the same thing to Rob. and I was like, ‘True, I did because I called him a mozzie.’ And I was like, ‘F*ck, they’re right.’ But guess what? I was wrong. That’s called growth. I learned. I realized that’s – how’s this, a black guy, telling this f*cking Maori that, ‘Nah, you’re not a f*cking true Kiwi because you live in Australia.’ That’s stupid. So again, this is called growth. I can admit when I was wrong. I f*cked up back then, but you learn. So I would never say that to Rob again because, who am I to try and take away his heritage?“
Du Plessis claimed that Israel Adesanya is not a real African fighter because he moved out of Africa and is living his life in New Zealand. Thus, for Izzy to claim that he is an African fighter is false. This would hurt Adesanya as he was born alongside his five siblings back in Lagos, Nigeria.
When Dricus Du Plessis claimed that he was a ‘real African fighter’
According to a report from CageSide press, Du Plessis once took shots at Israel Adesanya claiming that he was a real African fighter and not ‘Izzy’. He was stating the fact that after Francis Ngannou, Kamaru Usman and Israel Adesanya won their titles, they went back to where they stayed instead of returning with their back to their native countries.
Du Plessis said, “I’m the African fighter. Me and Cameron. we breathe African air. We wake up in Africa every day. We train in Africa, we’re African born, we’re African raised. We still reside in Africa, we train out of Africa. That’s an African champion, and that’s who I’ll be.“
These comments really agitated Adesanya as he called Du Plessis out after his win over Alex Pereira despite there being a big difference in their UFC middleweight rankings. Du Plessis had to win over Whittaker in order to be a part of the title conversation. However, now Adesanya claims that Du Plessis is rather scared of him and doesn’t want to fight. Do you think they will fight?
