Israel Adesanya has claimed that he actually agreed to a fight with current middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis at UFC 300 on April 13th, but his rival opted not to take the fight.
“There’s some things that were meant to happen,” Adesanya said on Theo Von’s podcast. “They summoned me, I’m sure this is out there now … but they summoned me for [UFC] 300 and I was like ‘yep, let’s roll.’ But their side didn’t want it. They didn’t want it.
“They just fought [Sean] Strickland so maybe he had a little bit of niggly injuries and stuff but we’ve all got niggles and what not.”
Adesanya’s claim ties in with comments from his coach Eugene Bareman earlier this month stating that his fighter had “answered the call” and was in training camp for UFC 300. However, not long afterwards UFC came out and announced that a light-heavyweight title fight between Alex Pereira and Jamahal Hill as the headliner for the show instead.
Du Plessis had already suggested prior to that he was unlikely to be competing at UFC 300, stating that he was more interested in fighting Adesanya at a still-to-be-confirmed event in Africa.
While Du Plessis vs. Adesanya was one of the best options the UFC had for a headliner to their star-studded show in April, in some ways perhaps it’s best that it won’t happen until a later date as it does seem like DDP still has some nagging injury concerns, while Adesanya has also been taking time out to shake off an injury, although he says that’s nothing new.
“I’ve fought injured for the last how many fights, that’s why I took time off just to let my body heal,” Adesanya said. “It has healed and I’m sure there will be more injuries, it just happens through training. Like what we do for work, it’s constantly something.”
Watch Adesanya’s full interview with Theo Von in the video below.
