Israel Adesanya, the UFC middleweight champion, has a huge following around the world. Being a flashy standup fighter with charisma, it’s a dream for any promotion. Add his Nigerian roots and Oceanía support, ‘The Last Stylebender’ has the potential to be a massive global phenom.
However, Adesanya’s coach, Eugene Bareman, has just revealed to Submission Radio that the relationship between the middleweight champion and the UFC is not as smooth as it should be.
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Ahead of UFC 271, coach Bareman, on the champion’s lack of push from UFC, said, “You are correct, you are correct, 100 percent correct. But I’m not at the moment willing to talk about this particular subject.”
He added, “That’s 100 percent a correct observation, the correction observation. He’s [Adesanya] not being nowhere near push the way it should but there’s stuff that I can’t talk about regarding to that so I’ll just leave it as a no comment but your assumption is correct backhand at least I agree with that.”
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This comes as a rather shocking revelation, as Adesanya seemed like the next big thing from the very beginning. Also, the UFC wants to build fighters into stars in order to generate revenue from the PPVs.
Israel Adesanya has proved himself at the Box office
The Kiwi kickboxer has not only performed well inside the octagon, but has also done well on the PPVs. During his short UFC career, ‘The Last Stylebender’ has already headlined 6 PPVs.
Though headlining a PPV and selling well are two different things, Adesanya has done both adequately. Adesanya has proved himself as a PPV star for the UFC, apart from Conor McGregor, Jorge Masvidal, and Nate Diaz, ‘The Big Three’, this Kiwi star has the most PPV buys in recent times.
His last three PPVs have reportedly done a cumulative 2.1 million PPV buys. This is a staggering number, considering the Kiwi kickboxer has been with the UFC for merely 4 years.
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With 2 fights left on his contract and the ongoing ‘fighter pay’ dispute, it will be interesting to see Adesanya’s future moves. In the meantime, Adesanya is looking to defend his middleweight championship against ‘The Reaper’ Robert Whittaker at UFC 271.
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Is the UFC not promoting Adesanya enough? How will UFC 271 do on the PPV? Are you buying the UFC 271 PPV? Let us know in the comment section.
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