NEW YORK – Israel Adesanya doesn’t look at the odds, but they happened to scroll across his smartphone screen Tuesday night.
“I like (the pressure) on me,” Adesanya told MMA Junkie and other reporters at a UFC 281 pre-fight news conference Wednesday. “I like it on me in this one. I saw last night, I’m like, ‘Why am I the favorite in this on the betting odds?’ I never check them but I just happened to see something on Instagram and I was like, ‘How the f*ck am I the favorite?’ I feel like we should change that. How do we change that or something, fake an injury? I don’t know. We’ll see. I think we should bet on him this fight. Yeah, we’ll just see what happens.”
While he didn’t specifically say he thought the odds are wrong, nor did he give further reasoning for his verbalized surprise, Adesanya (23-1 MMA, 12-1 UFC) previously criticized the public perception of his took kickboxing bouts vs. Alex Pereira (6-1 MMA, 3-0 UFC), his UFC opponent for Saturday at Madison Square Garden.
