🚨| Israel Adesanya was apparently involved in a road rage incident in New Zealand. 😬#Mixed Martial Arts
#UFC
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— MMA Frenzy (@mma_frenzy)
September 5, 2024
Israel Adesanya spoke about a recent violent confrontation involving another individual in New Zealand.
Adesanya was recently filmed getting into an altercation with an unidentified individual in his home country. The footage shows the former UFC middleweight champion attempting to get into his car while arguing with his opponent, who repeatedly flexes his biceps. “The Last Stylebender” appears to spit on his opponent before the video ends.
While it’s unclear from the video what caused the altercation, Adesanya claims the man was trying to get him into a fight while he tried his best to calm the situation, and has said he will be suing the man for making racist remarks and threatening violence.
“I was leaving a cafe on K Road on Wednesday morning when a passing car slowed down and the passenger shouted racist abuse and challenged me to punch him,” Adesanya told the NZ Herald. “I laughed, waved him off and continued to my car. The car stopped but the abuse continued. I waved him off again. The car then stopped and the passenger got out, approached me in an aggressive manner, continued to shout abuse and demanded that we punch each other. I tried multiple times to calm the situation. As he approached me I asked passersby to call the police.”
“He then invaded my personal space and I felt threatened. To protect myself, I became more verbally aggressive and defensive. He was silent for a while but the abusive language continued so I left him with some choice words, carefully walked to my car and left the scene.
“It’s ridiculous that we can’t buy a pie after practice while our teammates watch from the sidelines filming some idiot yelling vulgarities and challenging us to a fight. Threatening people with violence is no joke. It’s very dangerous and incidents like this shouldn’t be glamorised online. Hopefully in future people will speak out instead of taking out their phones and filming.”
The person who filmed the video, who also spoke to the New Zealand Herald on condition of anonymity, confirmed he didn’t know what caused the altercation but was unhappy with Adesanya’s behaviour.
“I recognised him straight away and from what I witnessed I was very disappointed to see him behaving in public, swearing, spitting at people and grabbing their private parts,” the person said. “As a public figure I expected more from someone representing New Zealand internationally.”
Adesanya is currently 1-3 in his last four fights (all title bouts), but is most recently coming off a submission loss to Dorricus du Plessis in a gold medal bout at UFC 305 last month.
