Michael Bisping believes Dricus du Plessis lit a fire under Israel Adesanya.
Middleweight champion du Plessis (21-2 MMA, 7-0 UFC) will seek to make his first title defense against former champion Adesanya (24-3 MMA, 13-3 UFC) in the main event of UFC 305 on Aug. 17 at RAC Arena in Perth, Australia (ESPN+ pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+).
Du Plessis and Adesanya exchanged testy words at the UFC 305 launch press conference on Tuesday, with du Plessis saying afterwards that Adesanya was “trying to convince himself that he still wants to be here.”
“That's some pretty harsh words for Israel Adesanya. For Israel, this is going to be a big motivator for him,” Bisping said on his YouTube channel. “It's going to infuriate him. It's going to demotivate him.”
“It's going to stick in his head. Tutt is going to make him train hard and I wouldn't be surprised if we see the most dangerous, meanest looking Israel Adesanya we've ever seen.”
Adesanya's last major loss was a TKO loss to Alex Pereira in a middleweight title fight at UFC 281. He avenged that loss in spectacular fashion by knocking out Pereira to reclaim the belt at UFC 287, before losing the title in a surprising loss to Sean Strickland at UFC 293.
Since then, Pereira's career has only grown, moving up to light heavyweight and already defending his title twice, and Bisping believes that must be playing a role in Adesanya's mind.
“What did he do after he was embarrassed last time against Alex Pereira? He came back and knocked out Alex 'Poitan' Pereira, (currently) a star in boxing, one of the top fighters pound-for-pound, a two-division world champion and the biggest star in mixed martial arts,” Bisping said.
“That's a whole other story. Don't think Izzy isn't angry. Of course he is. Izzy was the guy. Now he's fallen. Someone else has his belt. His former opponent, his former rival, his former nemesis, is now Izzy's former player. He's now the biggest star in the sport. Everybody loves him. That makes Izzy angry, too. So, like I say, I think he's going to be a very, very dangerous fighter.”
For more details on the card, check out MMA Junkie's UFC 305 event hub.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie
