UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovksi leaped to his City Kickboxing teammate Israel Adesanya’s defense on The MMA Hour. Adesanya has been subjected to plenty of criticism since his last title defense, but Volkanovski pointed out that his opponent, Jared Cannonier, similarly failed to make the fight exciting. It shouldn’t be on the champ, he says, to go for a finish, and the challengers ought to do more to attempt to secure victory.
“Of course it is [unfair]. It’s going to happen every time. Every time you have tough fights. The thing is, people need to understand when someone only has a puncher’s chance, and that is all they’re looking for. Come on, man. Why does a champion have to take all the risks? Why does he have to come forward when he knows someone is waiting for a big shot?
Volkanovski Leaps to Adesanya’s Defense, Says It’s “Totally On the Challenger” to Push A FIght
The person, the challenger, obviously if things aren’t going their way — and I’m not having a shot at Cannonier — I think they need to make something happen. I don’t think it’s up to the champ to make something happen.”
Israel Adesanya is one of the finest strikers on the UFC roster, a fact Volkanovski believes his opponents know all too well. “Everyone knows that they need to try and get in on Izzy.
Sitting back and just letting Izzy piece you up on the outside, I believe that’s totally on the challenger. Put it this way: If he had done that little bit more, it would have been a completely different fight, and then everyone would have been talking about how great of a knockout [it was]. That’s the thing, people quickly forget.
I’m not having a shot at everyone. At the end of the day, people are going to remember how many defenses you had. Look, he goes and fights [Alex] Pereira and knocks him clean out, you think they’re going to be talking about that one [against Cannonier]?
No, they’re going to quickly forget and he’s going to be glad he didn’t take any stupid, unnecessary risks to please a couple of people. Obviously I’m sticking up for my boy, but I think that’s fair. I think that’s how it is. That is going to happen sometimes.”
With Pereira vs Adesanya all but confirmed, Volkanovski expects to see his teammate wipe the slate clean and silence the critics. “People will quickly forget. Same as [Kamaru] Usman.
People were giving him criticism and now he’s going and knocking people out, and that’s it — now he’s the man, and well-deserved. They should be looking at him like that. I think Izzy’s going to go do his thing against Pereira and then everyone’s going to be all over him.”
Is Alexander Volkanovski right about his teammate? Let us know in the comments.
