UFC commentator Jon Anik isn’t concerned by Israel Adesanya getting emotional at this week’s UFC 305 press conference.
As we know, Israel Adesanya will challenge for the UFC middleweight championship tonight at UFC 305. He will do so against reigning champion Dricus du Plessis, and it’s safe to say the two don’t particularly like each other.
They’ve been embroiled in a real rivalry for over a year now, with the core of the feud largely coming down to their African heritage. Since their initial interaction, though, we’ve seen more verbal jabs being thrown back and forth between the two.
During the UFC 305 press conference earlier this week, an exchange between them ended with Adesanya getting visibly emotional on the microphone.
While this has served as cause for concern for some fans and pundits, Jon Anik doesn’t see it that way.
Anik defends Adesanya
“This feud is real,” Anik told MMA Junkie. “And even though our fighter meeting with Dricus Du Plessis was largely rooted in him just showering buckets of respect upon Israel Adesanya’s legacy and everything that he’s accomplished, the backdrop to this one is definitely friction and heat, and for a lot of MMA fans, that’s the best of backdrops. So, we’re very excited to call this f*cking thing here in a few hours.”
“I do think he has this inexorable attachment to his family and his roots, and they were all right there,” Anik said. “I didn’t cry much in my 30’s, but I’ve made up for lost time in my 40’s. So, I do think that it’s not something that I would lean too heavily into.
“I also think that he’s getting ready for a weight cut so, there are a lot of different things that maybe could have triggered it, but perhaps with other athletes I would levy some concern, but not in this case.”
Quotes via MMA Junkie
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