After Glover Teixeira defeated Thiago Santos in November, he made it clear he wants to fight the new light heavyweight champ, Jan Blachowicz next. But, now that the UFC has announced that middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya will face the 205 champ, you won’t hear Teixeira blasting the move.

Teixeira understands the UFC’s decision

The 41-year-old Teixeira extended his winning streak to five in November by tapping Santos out in the third round. Following the memorable win, he called  for a title shot, and Dana White acknowledged Teixeira deserves that fight.

But, at that point, the UFC was already looking into having Adesanya move up to face Blachowicz, and eventually, it was announced they’ll fight on March 6th.

Well, more recently, Teixeira spoke with MMA Fighting. While discussing what could come next for him, and the fact Adesanya is fighting Blachowicz, the dangerous fighter said this.

“If Adesanya wins, what happens then?” Teixeira said. “Will Adesanya defend at 185 or 205? I don’t know.

If that means sitting down and waiting until June, August, I don’t know, maybe I would wait, I don’t mind.

But, honestly, we don’t know anything. Blachowicz winning would be better for me and everyone else. But if Adesanya wins, what is he going to do? He’s probably going back to 185.”

“Honestly, I’m not stressing about the belt,” he continued. “It’s superfights, they come up with belts when there are none in line, like the baddest motherf*cker [belt].

It’s about entertaining, and I’m not against that. They see the business side of it, Dana White sees where the money is coming.

Honestly, it delays a bit for us but, hey, we have to follow the evolution of the sport, and that’s how the sport is evolving these days.”

In addition, Teixeira said he could be open to serving as an alternate for the UFC 259 fight.

“I just got back from vacation, so I’ll talk to [my manager] ‘Joinha’ [Jorge Guimaraes] and see what we’ll do, but [being a backup fighter] is a possibility,” Teixeira said.

“I would have to do a full camp so, even if I have to wait, at least I did a camp, I won’t lose rhythm. Like you said, COVID is complicated, you really have to pull out if you catch it.”

Reaction?

No one could really fault Teixeira (32-7) if he was upset with the UFC’s decision. After all, he’s in his forties now, and he’s been fighting to get back to a championship fight for years (since 2014 when he lost to Jon Jones).

But, the Brazilian fighter is just being realistic here: the UFC is in the business of making money, and there’s no doubt that a fight between Adesanya and Blachowicz will be bigger than Teixeira fighting for the belt.

The location and venue for UFC 259 has yet to be determined.

Mentioned in this article:

More About: