Israel Adesanya is willing to play "he said, she said" in the fight-week run-up to his blockbuster main events. It's no different on the eve of Saturday's UFC 271, at which he'll try for his fourth straight defense of his UFC middleweight title. This time, it's a rematch with Robert Whittaker, who, despite losing to Adesanya by second-round knockout in 2019, is widely viewed as Adesanya's last/best challenger at 185 pounds.
But with Adesanya, there's more to the chatter than embarrassing training stories, random performance-enhancing drug accusations and the rest of the usual fare.