Quote:
Originally Posted by Randal_Graves
Lol. Gastelum is 50x the technical striker that Costa is. Makes sense he gave Izzy trouble. Adesanya is gonna make this juiced up gorilla look silly. Costa best chance is a KO and he doesn’t have one straight up KO in the UFC. He’s also gonna gas out after 3 rounds. The guys he’s stopped in the UFC are like 4-21 in their last 25 fights combined.
If you want some juice free action lmk
Sure, if you think this will be played like a kickboxing match then Adesanya will pick him apart from the outside and cruise to an easy decision. I don't see it going down like that though. Costa is perfectly happy to walk through strikes to get on the inside. It's going to be very difficult for Izzy to get away in the small cage which is significantly smaller than the normal cage which Izzy has fought most if not all of his UFC fights in.
Costa has landed more strikes per minute than anyone in UFC history. He also lands significant strikes at 57.8% which is one of the best in UFC history compared to 48% for Adesanya and 44% for Gastelum. Costa will be moving forward and Adesanya has to move backwards. All of this favors Costa in winning a decision.
Adesanya's best chance of winning a decision is Costa gassing and I haven't seen evidence that leads me to believe that will happen. Costa looks like he will gas based on his body type and the fact that he is cutting 50lbs off his walking around weight but at the same time this is literally the hardest working dude in MMA and he has no quit. If Adesanya gets in his head then I could see him blowing his load but aside from that I foresee him being fully prepared to go 5 rounds and the fact that there will be no crowd will make it less likely he gasses.
We're thinking about this opposite because I think Israel's best chance will be via KO since Costa will take chances in order to get on the inside.