Israel Adesanya and Yoel Romero's headline bout at UFC 248 simply did not live up to the hype.Fans were left bitterly disappointed by the low-action affair as Adesanya and Romero faffed about in the Octagon until the fight eventually went the distance.For Adesanya though - and probably only Adesanya - it was a night well spent as he extended his record to 18-0 in the division.However, his opponent was left with a bitter taste in his mouth and accused the Nigerian of evading him for much of the match in his post-fight interview.“It’s impossible to fight against a ghost,” Romero said through an interpreter.“I’m gonna start training for track or cross-country because obviously [Adesanya] is a cross-country and a track star, so I need to catch up to his sport.”He's not wrong - while Adesanya did enough to get the job done in the end, it was hardly a spectacle and it was the fans who were made to suffer.In fact, speaking in the aftermath of the woeful bout, UFC head honcho Dana White admitted that the fight was probably not the best idea and should not have happened in the first place.“The matchmakers didn’t love that fight and didn’t want to make that fight,” White said. “They did not want to make Romero vs. Adesanya.
"But the goofy fan in me said, ‘Are you s—ting me? Come on. This will be a fun fight to do, the fact that he wants to fight a guy who nobody wants to fight.’
“Now, hindsight is 20/20. We probably shouldn’t have done that fight. We probably should have waited for Paulo Costa.”
Adesanya had specifically asked for the fight while he waited for fierce rival Costa to heal from a bicep injury and White, despite the doubts, granted him his wish.
We can only hope that big Dana has learnt his lesson so we don't have to sit through another snooze-fest like that ever again.