Skip to main content

Chael Sonnen wants Robert Whittaker vs. Dricus Du Plessis scratched: 'It's not too late'

Chael Sonnen thinks the UFC made a mistake booking Robert Whittaker vs. Dricus Du Plessis.

Whittaker (24-6 MMA, 15-4 UFC) is scheduled to face Du Plessis (19-2 MMA, 5-0 UFC) at UFC 290 on July 8, in what is expected to be a No. 1 contender fight for middleweight champion Israel Adesanya according to Dana White.

But Sonnen is advocating for Du Plessis to fight Adesanya (24-2 MMA, 13-2 UFC), and thinks his fight with Whittaker should have never been made.

“It’s not too late,” Sonnen said on his YouTube channel. “We shouldn’t have made du Plessis vs. Whittaker, should we have, guys? We should’ve made du Plessis vs. Adesanya. Izzy says, ‘I’m not going to fight anybody till I fight him.’ Izzy doesn’t care if he doesn’t beat Whittaker. … Matter of fact, Izzy predicts Whittaker is going to beat Du Plessis. Izzy doesn’t care if he’s coming off a loss. He doesn’t care if he’s coming off a knockout humiliating defeat, he’s going to fight him next.”

Du Plessis and Adesanya have been going at it after Du Plessis claimed that winning UFC gold would make him the first true African champion in the octagon. But Nigeria-born Adesanya deemed South Africa’s Du Plessis’ comments as ignorant, which sparked a back-and-forth between the two.

Based off the fact that Adesanya already has beaten Whittaker twice and Du Plessis is a fresh challenger, Sonnen thinks it’s the fight to make. Adesanya also said he wants Du Plessis next, and doesn’t want to fight anybody else.

“Now we have an opportunity to just pull this fight,” Sonnen said. “What are we doing?”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 290.



from MMA Junkie https://ift.tt/4GRZV8P
via IFTTT
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Burmese fighter: Joshua Van details pioneering journey to plant Myanmar's flag on UFC turf

Joshua Van remembers asking his mother why they had to live in Houston. Why couldn’t they just go back home where things were familiar? He was 12 years old at the time, and Van wanted to go back to where he lived the first decade of his life, in Myanmar. Life wasn’t easy for an undersized pre-teen who spoke little English and was picked on during school for both of those attributes. Looking back, the math adds up that he’d become the first Burmese fighter to compete in the UFC. “I was a small kid,” Van recently told MMA Junkie. “From where I come from, you get picked on. It’s kind of like I fight everyday, and I got to the point where I enjoyed fighting. I watched clips on street fights and how to win street fights. I tried it in my next fight and things like that. That’s what got me into my career.” Van grew up one of five siblings in Myanmar, a country ridden with military and political conflict . When things increasingly worsened, Van’s parents decided to move to Malaysia. Van...
Read more

Max Griffin offended by booking against Michael Morales: 'They're sending a guy that they think can beat me'

LAS VEGAS – Max Griffin is not exactly happy with his matchup against Michael Morales . The 37-year-old welterweight veteran is set to take on Michael Morales on the main card of Saturday’s UFC on ESPN 47 at the UFC Apex. This booking made Griffin (19-9 MMA, 7-7 UFC) feel like he’s been set up to be a stepping stone for Morales (14-0 MMA, 2-0 UFC), who’s unbeaten and just 24 years old – and that has Griffin fuming. “I have a thing for these new guys: I get offended,” Griffin told reporters at Wednesday’s UFC on ESPN 47 media day. “So it’s another guy, 14-0, fought Trevin Giles. That was a terrible fight from Trevin Giles. He beat him in the beginning but burned his arms out, getting sloppy, and got knocked out. … He (Morales) ain’t fought nobody. It’s not even about who y’all fought, but I am me. I am him. I’m not the guy you want to fight when you’re that raw, that new.” Although there’s something to be said about Morales’s promise and rise, Griffin is not getting caught in a ba...
Read more

Bellator 290 post-event facts: Ryan Bader keeps perfect rematch record

The first Bellator event of 2023, Bellator 290 , went down Saturday at Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif., and it marked a monumental occasion for both the promotion and the sport. In addition to being the organization’s debut showcase on CBS, the card marked the retirement fight of legendary former PRIDE champion Fedor Emelianenko (40-7 MMA, 4-3 BMMA), who suffered a first-round TKO loss to heavyweight titleholder Ryan Bader (31-7 MMA, 9-2 BMMA) in their main event rematch. The co-headliner saw middleweight champion Johnny Eblen (13-0 MMA, 9-0 BMMA) remain undefeated with a unanimous decision win over Anatoly Tokov (31-3 MMA, 7-1 BMMA) for his first title defense. For more on the numbers behind the title bouts, as well as the rest of the card, check below for MMA Junkie’s post-event facts from Bellator 290. from MMA Junkie https://ift.tt/9YPBuqA via IFTTT
Read more