Photo credit to Submission Radio's Youtube channel.
Chael On Tyron Vs Izzy Being Competitive
Tyron Woodley vs. Israel Adesanya has become a fight that a segment of the MMA world has now allocated some level of focus to. Chael Sonnen has some intriguing thoughts on Tyron Woodley being a stiff test for Israel Adesanya. First, he starts off by saying it wouldn’t happen but that if it did, Tyron Vs Izzy would be competitive. The excerpts below are from Chael Sonnen’s recent appearance on Submission Radio.
The American Gangster stated, “That fight’s not gonna happen. Woodley followed that callout up by saying there’s four fights I need to do at welterweight. Unless he wins all four, he’s not gonna bump up and get a shot to be the champ-champ if you will. But that’s actually a really hard fight for Adesanya. I mean, it really is. The hardest guy to fight is the guy one weight class below you.”
“He’s just a little bit quicker than what you’re used to and he can go just a little bit longer because he’s a little bit lighter and he doesn’t get tired quite as fast. The hardest guy to fight is one weight underneath you. And I realize what people are gonna do, they’re all gonna dismiss Tyron, and go ahead, because the fight’s not gonna happen anyway. But if that fight happened, that’s a lot harder and a lot closer match than many might think. “
Tyron Vs Izzy
Sonnen also spoke in-depth about the rich, modern landscape for fighters to raise their profile. A landscape that is evidently going largely unexplored and untapped. He quipped, “So many fighters are missing the mark right now. It is so easy to get a headline. If you are a fighter and you are not in the headlines, you are doing something wrong. Most guys are saying, look, there’s no fights going on so there’s no fights to talk about. Okay, that’s true. But if everybody is doing that and everybody is taking their oars out of the water, now’s the time to strike, you can go up and get all the [headlines].”
“Tony Ferguson is the biggest star in sports over the last 10 days. And all he did was put his ass on a scale. But it was the only thing that happened. We’ve all been talking about it. We had no choice but to talk about it. It was a brilliant move, even with just a marketing standpoint – which, Tony had a lot of other reasons to do that – I’m just saying that was a very brilliant move.”
The former multi-time UFC title challenger continued, “So, if you’re Tyron Woodley, I don’t think Tyron was out just having fun, but if he was just looking to just get attention, always go after Adesanya because Adesanya will always respond. Adesanya doesn’t look to the number one contenders. Don’t forget, Adesanya just fought Yoel Romero, who is not a number one contender, who is coming off a loss. That fight made no sense. He got a fight with Yoel cause he doesn’t like him and he told Dana that.”
Dana, Romero and Costa
“He said, ‘hey, don’t punish me for my success, I got in this business cause there’s some guys that I want to fight, and if you’re telling me I don’t get to fight them now because I’ve done so well at fighting, that’s not what I’ve signed up for,’ and Dana goes, okay, you’re fighting Yoel Romero. So, my only point to you is, don’t think Adesanya is going to run and hide if you’re a lower name or you’re not likely to get in there with him. If you say his name, he will say your name back.”
More than likely, Adesanya will go on to defend his middleweight gold against Paulo Costa next. Woodley seems to ultimately want to recapture gold at 170 lbs this calendar year and wants to resume fighting within the next few weeks. This bout doesn’t look likely for the short term, or long term realistically, but Tyron Vs Izzy is a fun one to play fantasy simulator with a bit.