Despite his best effort, Marvin Vettori came up short in his bid to become middleweight champion after falling to Israel Adesanya in the main event of UFC 263.
While the Italian fighter definitely had his moments, he ultimately took too much damage on the feet in striking exchanges with Adesanya and failed to capitalize on the takedowns he landed during the fight.
Vettori disagrees with judges but now calls for “drunken” Paulo Costa
In the end, all three judges scored the fight 50-45 for Adesanya, and while Vettori acknowledges defeat in the fight, he doesn’t believe he lost all five rounds.
“I think I did a lot of good things,” Vettori told BT Sport after the event. “I was having a lot of success with boxing exchanges. The story of this fight was the leg kick, I guess. I went back and talked to my coaches, I think 50-45 was definitely not the right decision but it is what it is. At the end of the day, I’m 27 years old. I’m going to go back to the hotel, I’m going to go out running. I’m going to run and do like a five-mile run. I didn’t even take a hot shower because I feel like I don’t deserve it. That’s how crazy I am. I’m going to go back, work and get ready for the next fight.”
Part of the fight narrative was whether Vettori could use a similar game plan against Adesanya as current UFC light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz employed a few months ago.
In that 205-pound showdown, Blachowicz used his considerable size advantage and grappling power to put Adesanya on the mat and control him there for much of the fight, ultimately resulting in a unanimous decision victory.
While Vettori was able to take Adesanya to the ground, he was unable to maintain control for long and that eventually allowed ‘The Last Stylebender’ to reverse his position or slide free to get back to his feet.
“He’s really slippery,” Vettori said of Adesanya. “He has his own game, his own way of staying on the ground. He does what he does and plays his own way. He may not be offensive or anything, but defensively he’s pretty good. Having said that, I had all the cards to beat him, but I didn’t. I said going in I would leave no doubt and even if I had won, I would have left doubt and at the end of the day, I didn’t do enough.”
Adesanya and Vettori then exchanged a few words that momentarily seemed to be burying the hatchet after so much bad blood leading up to the fight. Adesanya then pulled away and rolled his eyes, which he later explained was because, despite the outcome, Vettori was still claiming that he actually won the fight.
According to Vettori, that’s exactly what happened in the heat of the moment. But he has no problem giving Adesanya credit for a job well done.
“Immediately after the fight, I thought I won. I thought I won and he said ‘no, you didn’t win.’ He said ‘at the end of the day, respect, we don’t like each other, but respect’ and I said, ‘you know what? We share the octagon. At the end of the day, you have to give some recognition.'”
While the outcome wasn’t what he wanted, Vettori isn’t going to sit around and sulk about the result because he’s already thinking about what comes next so he can begin his climb back to another title shot someday.
Marvin isn’t opposed to any particular matchup that the UFC can offer him. Although in a perfect world, he would really like to face Brazilian Paulo Costa.
“To be honest, I’d really like to destroy this drunk guy who can’t even stop drinking. It’s ‘Borrachinha’ I would definitely like to beat this guy. I’m so ready. You can count me in, when there’s a fight and there’s a date, I’ll be there. We’ll see.”
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