Israel Adesanya turned down Dana White's offer to fight in Australia at UFC 305 for one reason, claims Dricus Du Plessis

“I will never fight in Auckland, New Zealand, again… What they did to Dan Hooker,” said Israel Adesanya in 2022 when fighters could not get rooms in their country due to COVID-19 restrictions. He further stressed that he would rather fight in Australia than New Zealand. Nevertheless, the wheel of fortune seems to have turned against him because after the fight against Sean Strickland, Adesanya's view has completely changed and Dricus Du Plessis has now revealed it.

Current middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis will defend his title against Israel Adesanya, who returns after a one-year hiatus. During the pre-fight media briefing at UFC 305, StillKnocks revealed that Adesanya was hesitant to compete in Perth. Let's dig deeper.

Dricus Du Plessis revealed Israel Adesanya’s reluctance to fight in Australia

The last time Israel Adesanya fought in Australia, he suffered a humiliating loss to Sean Strickland, who was very popular with the Australian crowd. The American fighter received support from the crowd despite fighting in enemy territory. This seems to have affected Adesanya on a spiritual level, as “Stylebender” considered Australia his second home after New Zealand.

Now that he is set to return to office in Australia in October, Dricus Du Plessis has the opportunity to reveal some unknown facts that were meant to remain hidden.“Yeah, I mean, I've known for some time that I was going to fight on that date. Whether it was going to be Israel Adesanya, who you originally didn't want to fight in Australia at all,” said Du Plessis.

He added: “I suppose it had something to do with the Strickland fight and the crowd not really supporting him. But for me it didn't matter because we knew the Springboks were playing and the UFC wanted it to happen. It was basically a done deal some time ago, a couple of months ago, that I would fight in Australia on that date. So I was preparing for that fight; it wasn't necessarily preparing for Israel Adesanya.”

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