Israel Adesanya could care less how Paulo Costa wants to promote their headlining fight at UFC 253.
UFC middleweight champion Adesanya will defend the gold against Costa in the main event of UFC 253. Costa put on a video mocking Adesanya, calling in “Runnersanya,” but Adesanya doesn’t seem too bothered by it.
“It doesn’t really bother me,” Adesanya said at the UFC 253 virtual media day (via Steven Marrocco of MMA Fighting). “He can make any kind of tapes that he wants to make. I’m just going to keep doing me, like I always have.”
Adesanya and Costa have been going after each other even before Adesanya became the middleweight champion. The middleweight champion is coming off of a win over Yoel Romero at UFC 248 and Adesanya believes that his former title challenger may be on some illegal substances.
“What happened to Romero’s last fight with Uriah Hall?” Adesanya said. “Yoel Romero pulled out of his last fight with Uriah Hall. Unbeknownst to me, I thought it was just an injury. But it hasn’t been stated that it was an injury. Yeah, I’ll just leave that as allegedly. But some things are not being spoken for that should be spoken for, but nobody’s asking the right questions. It doesn’t bother me. I beat Romero. If something comes out and he popped, I still beat him when he was juicing. I said this before: I’m going to pop [Costa] before [the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency] does, and I plan on doing just that.”
UFC 253 takes place on Saturday, September 26 from Fight Island in Yas Island, Abu Dhabi with Israel Adesanya and Paulo Costa headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, which streams live on ESPN+ pay-per-view.
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