‘We Never Want Him to Judge Again’- Israel Adesanya Says He Removed a Judge From UFC 263 Panel

UFC middleweight Israel Adesanya sat down with Kevin Iole and went over his upcoming match-up against Marvin Vettori. ‘The Last Stylebender’ will be looking to defend his belt for the third time and continue his reign of dominance at middleweight. He’s keen to shrug off his loss to Jan Blachowicz at UFC 259 and settle the score against Vettori in the process.

Both men competed against each other in 2018 at the very same arena that their rematch is set to take place in. As the first fight ended via split decision, Israel Adesanya is keen to ensure that the second outing is more decisive in his favor. In fact, Adesanya revealed some interesting news about the judge who gave Vettori the win on the cards in the first fight.

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Israel Adesanya: Leaving no doubt

Adesanya explained that staple judge Chris Lee who has been a part of several UFC events won’t be on the panel for UFC 263. The City Kickboxing standout said that his team had moved to ensure he wouldn’t judge the rematch. It’s clear that Team Adesanya has left no stone unturned to ensure that things go smoothly on Saturday night.

“Shout out to my man Tim and Eugene. Eugene already made a complaint a while back to I think Mick [Maynard] saying we never want him [Chris Lee] to judge again. And apparently, he was scheduled to judge this fight again and shout out to my man Tim from Paradigm.”

“He said no fu*king way, and we got him out of there. No disrespect to him but full disrespect to him if he actually thought Marvin won that last fight.”

Marvin Vettori has brought up the result of the first fight on many occasions and cited it as a robbery against him. However, Adesanya believes that Chris Lee scoring the fight for Vettori was nothing more than oversight.

Considering where both men are in their careers, the second contest is expected to play out much differently. As they have both pledged to not allow the fight to go to the judges, fans can expect a violent showdown in Glendale, Arizona.

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