The main event of last Saturday's UFC 276 card featured middleweight champion Israel Adesanya defending his title against a fresh challenger in Jared Cannonier. Adesanya would cruise to a unanimous decision win with two judges scoring the fight 49-46 and the final judge scoring it 50-45. MMA fights, especially those that go the distance, are known to be filled with controversy, be it with the judging or maybe how a specific moment was officiated. This fight is no different as there was some debate amongst fans and media after this fight came to an end. However, this time, it had nothing to do with the referee, judges, or even any moment in particular during the actual fight. This time, there was a lot of really passionate back and forth conversations on social media discussing how interesting this fight was to watch. Some people were saying that this fight was boring to watch and that Israel Adesanya, in general, is a boring fighter. Others were saying that it was an absolutely masterful performance and complete domination for Adesanya. I am here to tell you that both of these things can be true at the same time and, at least recently, have been simultaneously true.
The people who are so heavily fighting on one side or the other look a little silly here, if we're all being honest. There's people out there who are acting like Israel Adesanya committed a crime against their family by having an uninteresting performance. You sort of expect that reaction from some fans because there is still the small, but very vocal "just bleed" portion of the fan base who gets bored if the fight doesn't end in the first two minutes. While those people are annoying, there's really nothing any of us can do about them, so I don't really worry about it too much. What did surprise me is that there were some media members riding this opinion pretty hard. The one that came across my timeline that I remember was Sean Sheehan, who, if you don't know, is an Irish MMA fan who contributes to several podcasts. I've never listened to any of them, so I can't speak to his exact role on each show, but I do know that Ariel Helwani speaks to him on occasion and has been on his Instagram Live's when he does the thing where he gives clues to see if people can guess that UFC Panini cards. If Ariel acknowledges his existence, then I assume that Sean is credible to some degree. It really doesn't make sense to me how someone could be so mad and offended over this fight. I'll get into my own opinion in a minute, but I think everyone agrees that this fight wasn't all that fun to watch. No one is rushing back to give this one a second viewing. However, acting like this fight was the most boring fight or worst main event of all time is overreacting for the sake of social media interaction. Very few things in this world are "the best" or "the worst" to ever happen or exist. This is no exception. His whole social media rant comes across as just silly. It is the same feeling I get when Stephen A. Smith or Skip Bayless try to convince me that what LeBron James did in some random regular season game in the middle of January against the Sacramento Kings is the greatest or worst thing that has ever happened to the sport of basketball. It is just all so unnecessary. Sean went on to tweet this, which is nonsense. "Adesanya's star will never rise to where it could with fights like that." Give me a break. The guy has several title defenses, is a top 3 pound for pound fighter in the UFC, and just recently signed a huge extension to become one of the highest paid fighters in the promotion. How can his star never rise? Where is it really left to rise to? Was he supposed to surpass Conor McGregor? Because I don't think I've ever heard anyone who even thought that was a possibility. If we're not talking about Conor's level of star, then how could he rise any higher than the biggest contract in the promotion? I don't know man. It is this kind of mindset that gets people called casuals. It isn't that "die hards" think this fight was an amazing, exciting, fight for the ages, but when they see people reacting like this is the worst main event in the history of MMA, they are left to assume that you either have no idea what you're talking about or that you're simply overreacting to get social media interaction. This fight wasn't the worst, wasn't the most boring, and Izzy isn't the worst, most boring fighter of all time. Just relax.
On the other side, there's the people who reply to all of the "this fight was boring" tweets by explaining how technical Izzy is and how dominant of a champion he is. While they're not wrong, I'm not really sure how that matters in context. This is the portion of MMA Twitter the either is, or pretends like they are, striking coaches and muay thai experts. If striking technique is your thing, then that's great and you shouldn't let anyone tell you to enjoy something else. However, just being a technically sound fighter does not inherently make a fight good. I would go as far as to say that the technical proficiency of a fighter (or both fighters) and how entertaining a fight is to watch have virtually no overlap at all. A technical fight can be boring or entertaining the same way that a sloppy fight can be boring or entertaining. All three parts of the Volkanovski vs Holloway trilogy were technical and entertaining. Izzy vs Cannonier was technical and boring. Justin Gaethje vs Michael Chandler wasn't technical, but was very entertaining. The recent fight between Josh Parisian and Alan Baudot wasn't technical and was boring. It is very easy to come up with examples for every category because the two classifications have nothing to do with each other. I don't think there is someone out there, not even someone who goes to bed every night thinking about the technicality in striking, who is going to rewatch Izzy vs Cannonier. It's as simple as that. Saying that the fight is boring doesn't take away from Izzy's complete control of the entire fight or his dominance as a champion, it just means that, strictly as an entertainment product, the fight didn't deliver. Not being entertained by any single style doesn't make someone a casual. Someone can find slow-paced, technical striking boring the same way that someone else can find wrestling and grappling boring. Not every single fighting style has to be equal in your mind. That doesn't make you any less of a fan or love the sport any less.
Now that all of that is out of the way, I'm going to get into my opinion of what actually happened Saturday night. I already talked a bit about it in the Fallout post I did on Monday, but this will have more detail, so it isn't a big deal if you missed it. To be clear, I thought this fight was a boring fight, while also being a very clear and dominant win for Israel Adesanya. It actually confuses me that there are people that would argue either point. The idea that someone out there could believe that this fight was competitive or interesting to watch is bizarre to me. The real question in my opinion is "what does it all mean?" By this, I mean what does it mean for Izzy and his ability to sell PPVs, as well as his perception from fans and his strategy going forward.
As for what it means for Izzy now, in the short term? Probably not a whole lot. I think the public perception of Izzy is probably as low as it has been since the Yoel Romero fight. I know that as things currently stand, I'm probably at my lowest point in my own personal interest in seeing him fight since that point in time as well. However, I think my reasoning does differ slightly than the general consensus. Most people seem to think that Izzy just has a boring style and is a boring fighter and leave it at that. Izzy is a counter striker and I do think that really committed counter strikers who don't budge from their gameplan are prone to some really slow fights if their opponent doesn't give in. Personally, I find those super committed counter strikers to be the most frustrating style to watch because so often they lose winnable fights because they just don't go first enough. However, I don't think Izzy falls into that most extreme category because he does go first quite a bit. He just doesn't go first with any strikes that are super impactful, at least over his last few fights. Where I would critique Izzy isn't in that he's just an inherently boring fighter, but rather that it just feels like he isn't all that into the fight sometimes. I don't think there's any statistics or data that I could use to back up my point, but I think if you were to go back and watch the Paulo Costa fight and this one, they would just feel different. Izzy had very real beef with Costa and the entire time they were fighting, it felt like Izzy was very engaged and looking to do damage and end that fight in a definitive way. I get that there are stylistic differences between Paulo Costa and his fights since that make finding those shots and finishes a bit easier, but Izzy himself just seems different to me. I think Izzy really respects Robert Whittaker and recognizes that Whittaker is probably the second best fighter in the division, so he was probably just extra cautious to not make a detrimental mistake. In the Blachowicz fight, the second Vettori fight, and now this one, Izzy just doesn't seem to be all that interested in what is happening. He seems content to find the gear that his opponent can't get to and then just stay at that level, even if he has another 2, 3, or 4 gears beyond that. We've seen a motivated Izzy come out and dominate Robert Whittaker the first time and Paulo Costa, so when we see a disinterested Izzy sleep walking through a fight, it is very clear. I think I said it in my preview post, but I wished that Izzy would step on the gas and put a stamp on the fight once it was clear that he had it in hand. No reasonable person is saying that they expect him to come out like Justin Gaethje and just throw bombs until someone falls. No one thinks he should do that or is asking him to do so. I just think that when it is clear that he has the fight under control, he should look for those opportunities to finish the fight instead of gearing down and just coasting to the decision.
I think the fact that this fight happened back to back with Volkanovski vs Holloway really exemplified a lot of the "issues" that I had with Izzy's performance. First of all, I think Volk vs Max was a very technical fight, while also being a very interesting fight, which goes back to my earlier point. The real difference to me was the way Volk was still pushing after he got up 3-0. Both Izzy and Volk were up 30-27 after 3 rounds, meaning they had secured the decision victory as long as they didn't get finished or get 10-8'd somehow. That is when we saw Izzy gear down and even lose the 4th on two of the judges scorecards (as well as mine). Volk on the other hand, not only clearly won both rounds, but was still pushing for the finish. We saw Volk do the same against the Korean Zombie. Instead of just easing to a decision after dominating the first 3 rounds, Volk came out and put a stamp on the fight. I just wish Izzy had that last push in him after dominating 3 or 4 rounds to just come out and put a stop to things. Go back even another fight for Volkanovski. Despite having controlled virtually the entire fight outside of a 45 second stretch in the third round, Volkanovski was beating Brian Ortega down. Ortega could hardly get back to his corner after the fight ended. Korean Zombie suffered the worst beating of his entire career to the point where Volk had to ask him if he wanted to continue during the fight. Max Holloway got dominated in a way that we've never seen, had a horrible cut near his eye, and couldn't do media because he had to immediately go to the hospital. After their fight, Jared Cannonier just walked out of the cage a little sweatier than he was when he entered. It is obviously a fine line and Izzy can't fight like anyone other than himself, but I wish he had that instinct to go out and finish it after he had controlled basically the entire fight.
Ultimately, we can sit here all day and go back and forth about what we want Izzy to do or what we think he should do, but the only thing that really matters is what he is actually going to do. The first thing to get out of the way is that I think it is pretty clear that Izzy doesn't really care too much about what the fans think of him. He isn't going to let me, Sean Sheehan, or Chris Pratt change the way he fights. The one thing that could potentially change the way he fights is if he really cares about how the PPV points effect his pay. For this fight, he had the support of the best card (on paper) of the year to date, so everyone was going to buy this one. However, the UFC did just sign him to one of the biggest contracts in the promotion, so I assume that they don't really want to have to give him another title fight or other big attractions and would want him to be able to carry some cards on his own. That is going to be when things get interesting. If he doesn't have the rub from Sean O'Malley, Alexander Volkanovski, and Max Holloway, I do wonder what those sales look like if his co-main event is Carla Esparza vs Zhang Weili, Valentina Shevchenko vs Alexa Grasso, or Cyril Gane vs Tom Aspinall for the number one contender spot. If Izzy doesn't sell well over his next fight or two, I highly doubt it would get him to change, but it could. The fact that he did sign such a large contract does make it easier to absorb those lower PPV numbers, but I do think he cares about making as much as possible to some degree. To me, it seems like Izzy is the kind of guy who is content to just rack up as many wins as easily as he can. In it's simplest form, that really is the name of the game. Damage your opponent as much as you can while absorbing as little damage as possible. One could argue that Izzy doesn't do much damage, but he takes almost 0 damage. In that regard, I really can't blame Izzy too much. I wouldn't want to get hit, so if I had a way to win easily without taking any damage at all, that sounds like the path that I would take. That also seems like the best strategy for beating Alex Pereira because taking even one shot from that guy could shut the lights off for the night.
The other thing that I do think causes Izzy to get a bit more hate for his lesser performances than other fighters is the disconnect between what he says and how the fights actually play out. Izzy is a very confident guy and isn't shy about it. He will be the first one to tell you how great he is and how much better he is than everyone else around him. When you talk so consistently about how you're just leagues better than the rest of the division, but then so consistently go to decisions, something doesn't add up. If he is truly as next level as he claims to be, it only makes sense that he would be able to find finishes more consistently. I really don't think it would be nearly as much of an issue if he approached his media differently. There was the one promo for this fight where he was talking about how he doesn't care about titles and it is all about fulfilling things that he wants to do. He said he has a list of techniques that he wants to say that he attempted in the cage before he retired and then went out and used the same general set of strikes that he uses every fight. He talks in interviews and press conferences about how he's going to get a finish and how it's not going the distance, but then not only does it go the distance, he never really even tried to finish Cannonier. I hate to keep coming back to Volkanovski, but I think he approached it perfectly and that Izzy could use some of those tactics. I remember an interview Volk did with Ariel where he said he's going into the fight to try and finish Max, but it is out of his control. He said he is going to hit him hard on his chin, but it is out of his control if he actually goes down or not. I think that is really the perfect way to handle that question. For Izzy to be so confident that he is just world's better than Cannonier and predict a finish, but be in cruise control the whole time and never look for a finish is just sort of disappointing, when we all know he had the ability to finish that fight.
I think the last thing I want to talk about is how to have these conversations respectfully. This comes to mind because of what Chris Pratt had to say on the post fight show. What makes it a little bit annoying to me is that Pratt isn't someone that we know to be an actual fan of the sport. There are plenty of celebrities who attend events consistently and tweet about the UFC almost every week. Maxx Crosby and Steve-O are a couple that come to mind. It was made clear that Pratt isn't a consistent fan because he was so comfortable calling into question a fighters intentions. No one who is an actual fan of the sport and these athletes (besides the internet trolls) would speak the way he did, unless they are also a fighter who is credentialed to speak more freely on the topic. I believe that someone in my position needs to choose my words carefully because I'm not the one risking my short and long term health out there. I critique fighters and tell things like they are when I have to, but there is a way to do so while maintaining respect for the athletes. I'm not Barstool where I just talk about sports like everything is so easy and obvious. I don't have the slightest idea of what it is like to fight another trained killer in a cage in front of an entire crowd of people and I don't pretend to. Some people are so quick to act like things are so easy or simple, when even if things were that simple, they would have no idea. The thing that really gets me on this one is that I don't think Izzy is even one of the more sensitive fighters who would take serious offense to things like this. I think Izzy is very receptive of criticism, even if he disagrees with it. I genuinely believe that if for some reason Izzy came across this and read it, that he would do so openly. He may still disagree with me at the end of the day, but I think he would be receptive of the perspective because it came from a place of respect and not just me throwing my opinion out there like I'm some sort of expert. Speaking nonchalantly however you want about athletes may put you in a spot like the guy who got slapped by Nate Diaz. I'll have a post on that coming at some point as well, but I think people, in general, need to be more aware of how they speak about other people.
There is one more thing that I wanted to clear up actually. I see some people out there who are asking questions about why is Jared Cannonier not getting any blame. I think it goes without saying that the way a fight plays out is contingent on the strategy of both of the fighters. If both fighters come out passively, which we saw Saturday, the fight will be slow and a bit of a staring contest. If both fighters want to come forward and be aggressive, it will be a car crash, sort of like we saw in Barberena vs Lawler. Izzy is a guy who wants to fight slow and counter. That means that if he is in control of what is happening, the fight will be more slow paced. That means that if the opponent wants a dirty, higher paced fight, it is going to be on them to force it to be that way. Jared Cannonier opted to play into the pace that Izzy wanted to fight at, partially because we've seen fighters who want to be aggressive against him get knocked out. On Monday's MMA Hour, Ariel said that it should actually be more on Cannonier because he knew Izzy was going to fight that and still did nothing. I disagree slightly because Izzy still could have been aggressive. The way the fight plays out, in terms of entertainment value, shouldn't be based only on the strategy that one fighter uses, but rather both. I think Izzy is getting more of the hate for a couple of reasons. First, he was the one who won the fight and like I talked about earlier, it felt like he was the one who had extra gears that he chose not to use. Additionally, I think this is something that had more to do with a trend than this fight in isolation. Izzy has been building up a longer catalog of slow paced, boring fights recently and is something that has been making more and more fans restless. The Blachowicz fight, the second Vettori fight, the second Whittaker fight, and now this one all in a row is a long time to go without anything all that interesting. There has been a trend in Adesanya's fights that they all sort of go this same way and I don't think people are giving him the benefit of the doubt anymore. On the other hand, Jared Cannonier is generally known to be a guy who goes for the finish and gets them at a decent enough rate. He is a guy who comes to fight and more often than not will put on an entertaining fight. One boring fight from Jared Cannonier is the exception, so fans are more willing to give him a pass on this one. If Cannonier went out and had this same fight for another 3 fights in a row, I think the fan reception would look a lot different.
At the end of the day, I can think that Izzy vs Cannonier was a boring fight to watch. I can also fully recognize that Israel Adesanya is one of the best champions in MMA right now. Those two thing can be and are mutually exclusive. Izzy isn't the first champion who has had this "problem" and he won't be the last. Plenty of people thought Georges St. Pierre and Khabib were boring. Anderson Silva had his share of odd performances as well. Stipe Miocic doesn't have much of a personality that he displays publicly. Most of the time, I just like to accept fighters for what they are and ignore what they're not, but obviously there are fighters who I enjoy watching more than others. No two fighters have the exact same style and that is what I appreciate about this sport. There is more than one way to win an MMA fight and seeing all of these styles pitted against one another is why we watch in the first place. Israel Adesanya doesn't care about the fan opinion, but he does care about how much money he makes from the PPV sales. That leaves him with a decision that only he can make. He can be content to 50-45 everyone with jabs and low kicks and compile a ton of successful defenses in what I would imagine will see decreasing public interest or he can start turning up the heat and pursue more finishes. I have a feeling that Izzy is more content to do what he is doing and stay champion for as long as possible, which is perfectly reasonable in my opinion. He is going to be champion for a long time this way and take as little damage as possible. That honestly sounds like a pretty solid way to live to me. Ultimately, I think the people who are really passionate about this are just overreacting. Izzy isn't the most boring fighter ever. This wasn't the most boring fight ever. This wasn't the worst main event of all time or even close to it. At the same time, thinking this fight was boring doesn't make someone a casual because you're not rewatching this fight either. Just relax. Everyone is going to be hyped for Izzy vs Alex Pereira, so none of this is going to matter in a few months anyways.
What do you guys think? Did you enjoy the fight? Do you like Izzy as a fighter? Where does he rank in your pound for pound rankings? Leave any and all of your thoughts on the topic below. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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