Israel Adesanya’s Mouth Gets Him In Trouble, Offers Apology

UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya missed the mark during a recent pre-fight press conference for UFC 248.

In a big way.

Adesanya, a native of Nigeria who now resides in Auckland, New Zealand, referenced the tragic events of September 11, 2001 in the United States while trying to promote his out with Yoel Romero.

The two will collide on March 7 from Las Vegas.

Adesanya was discussing Romero when he brought up the day the two Twin Towers collapsed, resulting in the loss of over 2,600 people from that event alone.

“He’s human like anyone else and everyone likes to make this myth about, ‘Oh, he’s steel, like king steel,’ or you hit him and he doesn’t fall,” Adesanya said (thanks to MMA Fighting for the quotes). “I’ll touch him enough times.

“I’ll touch him enough times and eventually he’ll crumble like the Twin Towers.”

After seeing the response from his comments, Adesanya did offer an apology via Instagram, admitting his wrongdoing with his choice of words.

“The comment in the last story sums up how I feel about this situation. I never made a joke about people dying or made light of the tragic event that was 9/11.

“I was simply rambling and my brain worked faster than my mouth in a moment to chose the wrong euphemism,” he said. “You speak on the mic enough times and you’re bound to miss the mark with some bars. I did on this one and for that I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful in the future with my words.”

Along with Adesanya vs. Romero, Weili Zhang defends her strawweight belt against former champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk.