Israel Adesanya compares Robert Whittaker to a ‘meth head’

Israel Adesanya and Robert Whittaker don’t even know where their UFC 243 middleweight title fight will occur yet, but Adesanya is already letting the trash talk fly.

Speaking at the UFC Hall of Fame ceremony over the weekend, the interim champion Adesanya shared his thoughts on his first staredown with the undisputed champ Whittaker.

He says the Australian reminded him of a “meth head.”

“At the staredown, he just reminded me of like a meth head,” Adesanya told MMA Junkie at the event. “When you look into someone’s eyes and you’re just like, yeah, and I’m looking at him like OK, cool. He’s a guy, he’s been here, he’s tough, he’s a vet in this game, so I don’t have to try and get under his skin. He’s not under my skin, and he says he doesn’t think about me, and I don’t want him to. I don’t expect him to. My coaches think about him a lot, though, and we’re going to devise a beautiful strategy to take him off.”

It’s not totally clear why Robert Whittaker reminded Israel Adesanya of a meth head, or what that even means. Whatever the case, Whittaker doesn’t seem too concerned with the comments of his rival.

“I guess the biggest difference for this fight and this opponent is that he’s got a problem,” Robert Whittaker told ESPN recently. “He’s kind of like arguing by himself. All my other opponents realize they’re not gonna get a rise out of me and they’re just chill and we fight. In the weeks coming we’ve got a fight. Face-to-face, you know. We can resolve our differences then. It’s different with him because he has a one-man argument. So yeah, I don’t care. It is what it is.”

Who do you think will come out on top when Robert Whittaker and Israel Adesanya finally meet?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 7/10/2019.