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In the prime of his wrestling career, Dan Hardy didn’t shy away from promoting a showdown, but even he was a bit surprised by Israel Adesanya’s celebration last weekend.
It took Adesanya less than two rounds to ditch Paulo Costa and successfully defend his middleweight title at UFC 253 on Saturday, but he did not finish as a challenger once the fight was stopped. When referee Jason Herzog stepped in to separate the fighters, Adesanya pretended to hit Costa from behind and then walked over to Costa’s corner and directed an obscene gesture at Costa’s team.
The actions were the culmination of months of bad blood and trash talks between Adesanya and Costa, although it is debatable that Adesanya crossed the line with his behavior. Speaking to the media at a scrum in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, Hardy gave his opinion on the situation.
“It was rude, it’s the truth,” Hardy said. “It was unnecessary and rude. It’s not good for sports to see those things, but at the same time we see a lot of the superstars who stand out, make headlines for what they do. [Adesanya] he was peeing in the octagon on his UFC debut. We shouldn’t be surprised by these things.
“There is a lot of animosity between these guys and we act bad when we are in these settings. When the adrenaline rises, you just won the fight, you have all this energy. How many times do you see people doing terrible dances after fights and stuff? I did it myself. You don’t know what you’re saying in interviews because it’s getting your adrenaline pumping, you’re just ‘blllaaaaah!’ Happens. Sometimes it’s hard to keep control of yourself under those circumstances, but that’s when you see someone like that and you think, well, it wasn’t in the spirit of martial arts and that’s really what we want to see, represent. sport as a whole. But ultimately these people have to be themselves. “
Unsurprisingly, Costa’s team criticized Adesanya for the post-fight celebration, with Costa calling him “human garbage” and Costa’s manager, Wallid Ismail, calling Adesanya’s actions “disgusting.”
Costa’s camp is already campaigning for a rematch, so Hardy thinks they are unlikely to release too many details about what went wrong Saturday. Hardy has his own theory, including the possibility that Costa, who usually finishes fast, will have a hard time building stamina for a five-round fight. He also credited Adesanya with being a difficult puzzle to solve, not unlike the great middleweight Anderson Silva.
“If you’re a three-round fighter and you’re fighting for five rounds, you may not be able to raise your conditioning to five rounds,” Hardy said. “You may have to manage that power system. So starting out strong and going fast for three rounds and then having to fight when you’re gassed and you’re trying to defend yourself from Adesanya isn’t the smartest thing to do. So if he was in the corner of Costa, he probably would have said the same thing: take it easy in the first round, don’t give him too much to search, don’t give him too much research, don’t give him too much. to realize and prepare. But sadly, I don’t think Costa had the operating system against Izzy to be able to understand what was going on when he was in his pocket.
“Remember when Anderson Silva got into the sport, it was like witchcraft. He is there and people just don’t know what to do. We have guys like Chris Leben who crashed forward and knocked people out, couldn’t get a hand on Anderson Silva, and there’s something very unnerving about that. When you know that you normally close distances and hurt people pretty quickly and can’t touch them. I think it was 12 strikes that he landed in the total fight. It was a spectacular performance from Izzy, he manages the range very well. It must be a lot like fighting Khabib [Nurmagomedov]. You can’t really understand what his wrestling is like until he gets his hands on you. I think when you stand in front of Israel Adesanya, you can’t really understand what that is like until he’s there. And when it’s there, it’s too late. “
