Dana White regrets booking Israel Adesanya vs. Yoel Romero after their ‘terrible fight’
UFC president, Dana White was not a fan of the UFC 248 main event between Israel Adesanya and Yoel Romero.
Many expected to see an amazing scrap, yet the two rarely engaged and threw strikes and were booed throughout the fight and in between rounds.
Following the fight, White admitted he probably shouldn’t have made Adesanya vs. Romero and should have waited for Paulo Costa to be healthy.
“I’m shocked,” White said (via MMA Fighting). “Romero knew this was his last opportunity at a world championship. I thought he was gonna come out like a bat out of hell, put tons of pressure on him, shoot takedowns, try to knock him out. He did literally none of that. If you’re Adesanya, he fought the smart fight. You stay on the outside, he chopped that leg apart, and he picked his punches and did what he did. Romero did a lot of moving around and acting like he was trying to fight but he never really did.
“Hindsight is 20/20. We probably shouldn’t have done that fight and we should have waited for Costa. Oh well, we did it.”
White doesn’t understand as to what Romero’s game plan was. But, he knows Adesanya did what he had to do in this fight.
“Right from the bell he came out and just stood there with his hands up. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever,” White said. “I thought he was gonna come out like a madman.
“This was a terrible fight. If you look at the UFC as a whole for as long as we’ve been doing it, you can literally put in one hand sh*tty fights that we’ve done. It takes two to fight. If somebody goes out there and doesn’t want to engage and doesn’t want to fight, and you’re a guy like Adesanya, he’s got so much more on the line. This is the way that the guy’s acting. He’s gonna stay back and he’s gonna pick him apart the way that he did. That leg was destroyed. . . He’s not gonna have a pep in his step tonight. That leg is hurting.
“Adesanya did what he had to do in my opinion. Why run in there and go crazy against a guy that dangerous when that guy is not fighting at all?”
In the end, Dana White was not happy with the scrap but is excited to see Adesanya vs. Paulo Costa later this year.
