Israel Adesanya recently reconciled with two of his biggest UFC rivals.
After beating Robert Whittaker twice in title fights, former UFC middleweight champion Adesanya trained with him last month at City Kickboxing in New Zealand. The pair even filmed multiple breakdown videos together.
Adesanya was then seen sitting next to former kickboxing and UFC rival Alex Pereira during this past Saturday’s UFC 312 event in Sydney.
Adesanya explained that, win or lose, he never holds any ill-will toward his former opponents.
“With all these guys, what’s hating Alex or hating Rob or anyone else do for me?” Adesanya told reporters during UFC 312 (via The MacLife). “It doesn’t serve me at all. It’s just poisoning myself. I’m holding onto hate in my heart for someone that’s moved on. So why would I do that? I’m not that kind of person. I’m just a chill guy.”
Pereira beat Adesanya twice in kickboxing, then followed him to MMA and knocked him out to become middleweight champion at UFC 281. Adesanya got the last laugh by knocking out Pereira at UFC 287 to reclaim his belt.
“I was even telling Alex before, like I said earlier, this is fighting, you’ve got to be a man about this,” Adesanya said. “If you don’t fight, you’re not a man, you don’t understand, but we shot a fair one. That’s it, cool. I even told Alex, ‘Bro, you beat me in Brazil. That was a fair one, cool. I left you alone. You chased me. So that’s your problem.’ That was his fault.
“I got asked earlier this week about an Imavov rematch. I’m like, why? There’s no need unless down the line something for the belt. Maybe he becomes champion, and I get my way there, but I don’t think I’ve got to get it back. That’s not how fighting works. That’s not how I see it unless it’s on some real beef personal sh*t but nah, you shot a fair one, you beat me or I beat you, good game, we’ll move on, we’ll move forward.”
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