It looks like Marvin Vettori has a game plan in his upcoming rematch against UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya on June 12 in the main event at UFC 263. Vettori is looking more than anything to avenge his April 2018 loss via split decision and increase his undefeated streak to seven since their last meeting.
My name is on your table nasty little guy 📄🖊🧐 @stylebender #LetMeHelpYou #theitaliandream pic.twitter.com/VcwofawxFL
— Marvin Vettori (@MarvinVettori) April 21, 2021
As for the defending champion, Adesanya is 7-1 since the Vettori fight and is looking to avenge his most recent loss to UFC light-heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz and start up a new win streak. The key flaw found in Adesanya’s game is his takedown defense. This is the one thing that makes Vettori salivate. He spoke on the Real Quick With Mike Stick podcast about what he witnessed in that fight at UFC 259.
“For me, it’s relevant, but it just proved a lot of things that I already knew,” Vettori said. “People pictured him like the Mayweather of MMA, and he’s not. He’s not. Jan was doing a great job defensively and then he was able to take him down again. People were picturing him like this phenom. He’s good, but he gets hit, and he misses a lot of shots, and he gets taken down. I can do all of that.”
“With Jan, the last time he got taken down, he kind of quit,” Vettori said. “He was just laying there. Adesanya, when it comes to the middle of the cage, when he’s taken down in the middle of the cage and he doesn’t have the cage, he’s pretty useless on the floor to be honest. Kevin Holland is a better jiu-jitsu player than Adesanya for sure. Even when Adesanya said, and I made fun of it because even after the Blachowicz fight he was like, ‘I was trying to go for deep half.’
With the lack of desperation that Adesanya showed on the ground, he had little to offer. As opposed to “The Italian Dream”, he holds a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Filippo Stabile while training at Kings MMA. This is a key attribute that Vettori will have in his arsenal against a superior striker.
In exactly one month, these two top-tier middleweights will have their highly anticipated title bout. The big concerns are whether Vettori can capitalize off of Adesanya’s weaknesses and if Adesanya can stay on his feet.
