Despite recent rumours about a potential health issue with Israel Adesanya’s arm, he says he doesn’t have a staph infection.
A video of Adesanya doing an interview came out last Sunday. It appeared to show a mark on the Middleweight champion’s arm. This sent the MMA social media into a frenzy, with some fans and media immediately speculating that it’s a staph infection. “The Last Stylebender” has now dismissed the rumours, saying that it is just a little scrape.
“It’s just a little something, a little scrape of myself,” Israel Adesanya said on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show. “That s**t happens, but whatever.”
Helwani asked the champion directly what the injury is. Adesanya immediately denied it was staph and said he will never get staph in his life.
“A little something. I’ve never had staph. I never will,” he said. “I’ve had malaria damn near eight times. I don’t know what else I’ve had. Like you think staph’s going to f**k with me?”
Israel Adesanya also assured us that it won’t affect him on fight night. He’s still confident that he will successfully defend his Middleweight throne on Saturday.
As a reminded, Israel Adesanya will be looking for his 1st title defense against Yoel Romero in the main over of UFC 248 this Saturday. Even though the Cuban has lost his last 2, this was a fight “The Last Stylebender” asked for, when Paulo Costa got injured. He wanted the next toughest opponent and Romero is just that.
Adesanya will be entering the bout with a perfect 18-0 record in MMA with 7 wins inside the Octagon. He has beaten notable fighters like Robert Whittaker, Kelvin Gastelum, Anderson Silva, Derek Brunson, and Brad Tavares among others.
We won’t find out whether or not Adesanya is being truthful about the extent of his injury until fight night, but as the champion has stated he is confident it won’t impact him at all.
This article first appeared on CLOSEDGUARDMEDIA.com on 3rd March, 2020.
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