On Saturday night at UFC 248 in Las Vegas, Israel Adesanya made the first defense of his middleweight title, taking on former title challenger Yoel Romero. It was supposed to be the marquee fight of the evening; a contest between the exciting new champion and the most-feared fighter in the division. Instead, the main event turned out to be a dud with only 88 combined strikes landed between the two of them (for context, the co-main event bout between Weili Zhang and Joanna Jedrejczyk eclipsed that number in less than two rounds). It was almost entirely unexpected and, according to one of the men who commentated it, “just very weird”.
Morning Report: Daniel Cormier likens Israel. Adesanya’s UFC 248 performance to Anderson Silva, says it won’t affect his star power
