UFC middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya has explained his pre-fight encounter with Paulo Costa.
When Adesanya and Costa arrived at Fight Island, Wallid Ismail, the manager of Costa, shared a video of the two rivals joking and laughing when they saw each other.
Immediately, many fans were turned off by the incident but for Adesanya, he explained what he had to say.
“What happened was I walked past him, and you’ll see in my [Instagram] story, and I checked him and what did he say — he said, ‘You good?’ I said I’m great,” Adesanya said about the incident during UFC 253 media day (via MMAFighting). “Then he muffled something, and I doubled back and I went over there to kind of check his energy.
“I went there, sized him up, patted him on the shoulder to feel how dense he is. I shook his hand cause I wanted to feel the kind of pressure he put on from a guy who said, ‘I would not shake his hand when I beat him.’ Cause he’s just like one of those dogs that barks behind the fence, but when the fence opens up, he’s just kind of like real timid. So I could feel that off him, it’s the energy.”
UFC 253 goes down on Saturday night on Fight Island with two title fights on the line. Stay locked to MMANews for all your fight night coverage and post-fight coverage.
