Reigning UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya has explained why he will be rooting for the South African in the upcoming challenger bout between Robert Whittaker and Dricus Du Plessis, who questioned the New Zealand Nigerian’s African identity.
“I’m taking him to school in the octagon and giving him a history lesson along the way,” Adesanya said in a video posted on his YouTube channel. “What he is doing now is creating division. You can’t not know your history – I never questioned that he was African because, yes, he was born in Africa. In South Africa. And of course you’re African. I never doubted it. But who is this damn snowball to tell me who I am? To say who is Kamaru Usman and who is Francis Ngannou? You, a stupid product of colonization, are trying to explain to me who I am? You can take a boy out of Africa, but you can’t take Africa out of a boy.”
“I never did this to him – didn’t discredit him as an African, but he does it. Cool. Do you wanna get a fight? Cool. But the fact that this damn snowball tells me who I am really makes me angry, and that’s why I want this to be my next fight. I don’t want to fight anyone else. He pisses me off.”
Recall that the middleweight contender fight between Robert Whittaker and Drycus Du Plessis will be part of the UFC 290 tournament, which will be held July 8 in Las Vegas.
Source: https://fighttime.ru/news/item/31401-israel-adesanya-nazval-potentsialnogo-sopernika-produktom-kolonizatsii.html?rand=19907
