Israel Adesanya has given up on his dream of headlining a UFC card in New Zealand.
Adesanya called for his next title defense to happen in Auckland as he wanted to fight at home. Yet, as the country continues to lock down to the pandemic, which includes shutting down gyms like City Kickboxing and making it hard for fighters like Dan Hooker to fight, “The Last Stylebender” has no interest in fighting at home. Instead, he says the ‘bureaucrats’ can make their money elsewhere.
“You will never see me fight in New Zealand ever again,” Adesanya said in a video he posted on YouTube (via NZ Herald). “All that money, they can get it from somewhere else. Their rugbys, their crickets, and all the others they’re giving exemptions to, but you will never ever see me fight on these shores. That was one of my dreams, to headline a stadium in my backyard. That dream’s dead in the water. That’s just the way I feel right now… F**k these c***s, I don’t respect them for what they are doing to my boy.”
Israel Adesanya says he got pissed off that cops kept coming by the gym trying to shut them down. He then says journalists would stake out the gym and take pictures of them entering and leaving and sending it to the government.
What also makes Israel Adesanya is mad is the fact other sports teams have gotten exemptions so they can train. Yet, for whatever reasons MMA fighters haven’t which Adesanya says pisses him off.
“That pissed me off. It’s like ‘really, this is what you’re using your privilege to do?’ The constant effort to stifle, to break up, to disrupt our team at City Kickboxing from helping team captain Dan ‘Hangman’ Hooker for getting ready for his fight, that’s pissed me off the most,” Adesanya said.
Adesanya does have some valid points and he’s not the only New Zealand fighter to talk badly about the lockdowns.
