Israel Adesanya: Casuals think I’ll lose to Paulo Costa but ‘will be waiting a long time’
MELBOURNE, Australia – New UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya plainly wants a piece of fellow undefeated competitor Paulo Costa next.
Adesanya went back and forth with Costa this week in the lead-up to his second-round TKO of Robert Whittaker in the main event UFC 243, and then made it a point to call out the Brazilian in his post-fight interview.
Later, at the post-fight news conference at Marvel Stadium, “The Last Style Bender” gave some insight as to why this fight is so appealing to him.
Sure, the fight with Costa is a classic “someone’s ‘0’ has got to go” scenario, but Adesanya believes that not all records are created equal. And also that casual fans will simply look at Costa’s physique and believe he’s the guy who can defeat Adesanya.
“I like that fight because the casuals, they’re dumb,” Adesanya said. “They see a beefed-up beefcake like that, and they think ‘now that’s the guy.’ I’m still all hype, by the way. I’m still just a hype train. So they’ll see that and think that’s the guy, ‘that’s the guy.’ They just want to see me lose, but they’re going to be waiting for a long time.”
Still, though, while Adesanya seemed to want to pass this off as merely analytical, it’s pretty obvious there’s personal animosity not far beneath the surface during the post-fight posturing between the two.
“(I was trying to) sell the next fight a little bit, but at the same time, he’s a (expletive). He’s my (expletive),” Adesanya said. “I want to make him my (expletive). So that’s why I did what I did.”
At the end of the day, Adesanya will concede that Costa looks the role of a fighting champion, but he won’t give him much credit in the skills department.
“He looks good. He looks beefy. He looks like a swimsuit model, doesn’t he? He’s a handsome man,” Adesanya said.
But when asked about Costa’s skill level, he replied: “Basic. Basic is just what I work on, my foundations. I have to work on my basic. He doesn’t need … everyone that he fights is just a punching bag that stands there, just waiting to be hit. I can’t wait to fight him. I’m not impressed, to be honest.”