Yoel Romero’s last UFC appearance was a lackluster affair. He challenged Israel Adesanya for the middlweight belt, and over the course of five rounds neither fighter mounted any significant offense. Romero, in a recent interview with The MMA Hour, blasted his “pampered” old opponent for delivering several “boring” performances since.
“It left a lot to be desired, but let’s get things straight. He called me [out], right? He’s like, ‘OK, nobody wants to face the beast. I want to face the beast. Not only do I want to face the beast, I want retire him.’ And then I got excited. I was like OK, this is going to be one hell of a fight. Let’s go. You want the beast? You’ll get the beast.
Romero Blasts “Pampered” Adesanya Over “Boring” Fights
So then I go up, I get ready for the fight, I’m ready to stand in the middle of the octagon right there — and I do, I stand up in the middle of the octagon ready to brawl, ready for blood to be shed and for fans to see a true all-out war. Right?
But what happened? He starts to fight and he feels my power, and all of a sudden, what? He starts running away from me. I’m not going to start chasing after you.
That’s not what I’m going to do. The UFC was pampering him, was pampering Izzy, and basically I guess what they wanted was for me to go running after him. No, I’m not going to do that.
If he was intimidated and didn’t want to exchange punches with me, that’s on him, not on me. All I did was stand up in there wanting to fight like a man and exchange blows. He didn’t want to do that, that’s on him. But it could have been way more than it was.”
While Israel Adesanya might point out that he was able to win the fight, boring or not, Romero believes there’s a difference between a tactical, defensive game plan and failing to show up.
“Now don’t get me wrong, I do understand when someone wants to fight smart. If you want to get in and out, get a couple of kicks here, a couple punches there, pick your moment, that is absolutely fine. But that’s not what he did. What he did was whenever he felt like I was coming up to him, he literally just ran away.”
He believes there’s a clear difference between himself and the middleweight champ. “Have you ever seen a boring Yoel Romero fight [aside from Adesanya] — yes or no?
That’s my point. You’re bunching me up with Izzy, where, if you take Izzy away, now was there a boring Yoel Romero fight? How many fights does Izzy have that are boring? You see? You see? The blame is not on Yoel Romero.”
Do you agree with Yoel Romero? Let us know in the comments.
