Marvin Vettori: Israel Adesanya ‘kind of quit’ when taken down vs. Jan Blachowicz

Marvin Vettori is finally set to get his long-awaited rematch with Israel Adesanya.

The current middleweight champion in Adesanya last fought at UFC 259 in March when challenging for the 205-pound title. Poland’s Jan Blachowicz would end up getting the better of his fellow champion by way of a unanimous decision on the night – doing so primarily by utilizing his grappling in the final rounds. Vettori wasn’t surprised to see this play out and is all the more confident going into his first career UFC title fight.

“With Jan, the last time he got taken down, he kind of quit,” Vettori said of Adesanya on Real Quick with Mike Swick. “He was just laying there. Adesanya, when it comes to the middle of the cage, when he’s taken down in the middle of the cage and he doesn’t have the cage, he’s pretty useless on the floor, to be honest. Kevin Holland is a better jiu-jitsu player than Adesanya for sure. Even when Adesanya said, and I made fun of it because even after the Blachowicz fight he was like, ‘I was trying to go for deep half.’

Italy’s Marvin Vettori has performed perfectly since his April 2018 encounter with Adesanya – a split-decision defeat. The 27-year old’s current five-fight winning streak was enough to earn him the rematch at UFC 263 on June 12 after beating Kevin Holland last month.

“I’m like, what the f*ck are you talking about?” Vettori continued. “There was no attempt to go to deep half. That shows you don’t know what deep half is, and I know exactly what deep half is because I’ve been training with [Fabricio] Werdum. I actually used deep half in my [Karl] Roberson fight. I used it successfully. His game and the way he fights, because he scrambles hard the moment you try to take him down next to the cage, but yeah definitely when he’s down, he’s pretty useless, to be honest.”