Israel Adesanya will have an opportunity to become the interim middleweight champion at UFC 236 when he takes on Kelvin Gastelum for that honor, and Adesanya then hopes to represent Nigeria as a UFC champion with a victory over Robert Whittaker later this year. Coincidentally, there is another Nigerian who is competing for a UFC championship, that being Kamaru Usman, who challenges Tyron Woodley tonight at UFC 235 for the welterweight championship. So does Israel Adesanya hope that Usman loses so that he will have the honor of being the first Nigerian UFC champion of all time? Absolutely not.
“It takes nothing away from me,” Adesanya said in a recent appearance on “The MMA Hour.” There’s this crabs-in-a-bucket mentality with people where it’s like, ‘Oh, I wanted to be the first Nigerian UFC champion.’ No, if he becomes the first Nigerian UFC champion, his win is my win, too…not really, but it is. Because, fuck, that’s good for us. That’s 180 million people and counting who are gonna hear about it. They’re gonna be ecstatic.”
At the end of the day, there is no need to compete for attention or glory. Israel Adesanya believes there is an infinite abundance of glory to go around for everyone:
“Yeah, Kamaru’s win is good for me. And I’ll happy take being the second Nigerian UFC champion. So there’s no shade. There’s no bitterness. That’s that whole crabs-in-a-bucket mentality this whole world is cursed with. People think there’s a finite amount of goodness, of money or whatever, of fame, of clout. They think it’s finite. But no, it’s infinite. If you want yours, go get. It’s out there. And no one’s shine is taking away from yours. It’s like love. It’s infinite.”
Do you believe either Kamaru Usman or Israel Adesanya will become a UFC champion in their careers? If so, who do you think will win gold first?
