Israel Adesanya has made a very specific request ahead of his UFC 281 middleweight title fight with Alex Pereira.
‘The Last Stylebender’ wants the UFC to bring back former referee Steve Mazzagatti for his latest title defence which takes place at Madison Square Garden in New York on Saturday night.
Adesanya suffered two defeats to ‘Poatan’ in kickboxing, including a vicious knockout that left him needing oxygen, which he is intent on brutally avenging with the help of a certain official this weekend.
"Dana, bring back Steve Mazzagatti. Bring back Steve Mazzagatti to ref my fight because I want to hear 'fight back' as I'm punching him in the face like 50 times," Adesanya said on his YouTube channel.
Mazzagatti used to be a fixture of UFC events but became known for letting fights go on for way too long which often led to UFC boss White ranting about his incompetence during post-fight press conferences.
After Mazzagatti had a particularly bad night at the office in 2013, White insisted someone could get seriously hurt and labelled the referee ‘an incompetent fool’.
“That guy is dangerous. He's dangerous. It's disgusting. At what point do you realise that this guy is an incompetent fool and he's going to hurt somebody," White fumed.
Adesanya seems to agree that Mazzagatti, who is long gone from the UFC, is incompetent but that’s why he wants him in place at UFC 281.
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"I want to hear 'Fight back, you need to move, Alex, you need to move, fight back, now hook him up.' I want to hear that like 50 times before they drag me off of him,” he added.
Despite being famously knocked out cold by Pereira in 2017, Adesanya is confident heading into their trilogy fight after matching the Brazilian for the majority of their two-fight series.
“This guy, I know I can beat him,” Adesanya insisted.
“He's beaten me in the past so there's no false sense of arrogance and I have to humble myself in a sense of like 'No, he can beat me, but I know I can beat him.’ That last fight we had I was touching him, I had him rocked."
The New Zealander left kickboxing behind after his loss to Pereira and became one of the biggest stars in MMA by capturing the 185lb title and winning 20 of his 21 pro fights.
Pereira continued to dominate in kickboxing until 2020 when he committed himself to MMA full-time after previously going 2-1 in the sport between 2015 and 2016.
The 35-year-old is now 6-1 and after knocking out top contender Sean Strickland in one round at UFC 276 earlier this year, he is a worthy challenger to Adesanya’s middleweight crown.
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