Israel Adesanya made his latest title defense against Marvin Vettori and came out
The two fighters met in a bout on Saturday night (June 12, 2021) at the UFC 263 pay-per-view event from Glendale, Arizona from Gila River Arena. Right out of the gate, Marvin caught a leg kick and got a takedown into full guard.
Adesanya got back to his feet and had a good striking flow through the round. Vettori was pushing forward and throwing loaded up over hands, but Adesanya was just picking him apart.
The third round got interesting as Vettori got a takedown then took the back only for Adesanya to scramble to the top. Vettori did get a takedown in the fourth round, but Adesanya managed to get back to his feet. Vettori tried to go back to the takedowns in the fifth round, but Adesanya put up solid defense. Adesanya got the decision win to retain his title.
Peep the highlights of the fight courtesy of the UFC’s official Twitter account:
Adesanya made his first title defense against Paulo Costa at the UFC 253 pay-per-view event where he got a second-round TKO win. Adesanya became the new UFC middleweight champion when he finished Robert Whittaker at UFC 243 last October by TKO. Before that, he picked up a decision win over Kelvin Gastelum in the co-headliner of the UFC 236 pay-per-view event. Heading into this fight, he fought six times in less than a year-and-a-half total in the UFC and won all six bouts. Izzy was coming off a decision loss to light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz at UFC 259.
Vettori had gone 5-1-1 in his last seven fights with a majority draw against Omari Akhmedov at UFC 219, a split decision loss to Israel Adesanya in April 2019 before rattling off two straight decision wins over Cezar Ferreria and Andrew Sanchez in 2019. His previous fights saw him get a submission win over Karl Roberson at the UFC on ESPN 10 event, a decision win over Jack Hermansson at UFC Vegas 16, and a decision win over Kevin Holland at UFC on ABC 2.
