Los Angeles, CA — In the main event of UFC 248 this weekend, Yoel Romero will be in a middleweight title fight once again. Despite having lost two straight fights.
That’s been a concern for many fans, but Romero (13-4) isn’t focused on losses.
“I don’t think about, I lose two fights. I don’t feel like this,” he told media outlets including Cageside Press at a media luncheon Monday in Los Angeles.
“Israel has my attention because he do this like the old school,” he explained. “The best need it. Not want it, need it. When he says something like this, when he says ‘I don’t think about the records, I don’t think about nothing, I want to fight with the best in the division,’ he say ‘I want to fight Yoel.’ I say ‘thank you,’ because that is exactly what I do.”
Romero said he is of a similar position to the champion in that regard. “I don’t want to fight with the number 10 in the rankings. I want to fight with the next in the line. The number one in the line.”
That’s why he’s still here, added Romero. That, and “I’m still here because nobody give me nothing” in the sport.
“I work a lot, very hard. I don’t have excuses about the Borrachinha fight, with the Robert Whittaker II fight,” Romero said in regard to his recent losses. Both, it should be noted, were very close fights. “It is what it is, that’s going to happen. The judges say he win, he wins. I continue my life. I continue training hard, I continue with the same discipline, the same focus.”
Ultimately, said Romero, “I feel blessed.” And as for his underdog status heading into the fight, “I love it,” said the Cuban.
Romero compared his position as underdog to one of the most famous boxing matches of all time. “When Muhammad Ali beat George Foreman, when he looked into the cameras, he said ‘the whole world is talking, and I heard every word.’ Foreman, Romero said (via translator) “was younger, everybody said he was invincible, stronger, younger, everything.”
Yet Foreman was still knocked out in the eighth round of their 1974 boxing classic.
Whether Romero can replicate that feat remains to be seen. Romero, 42, faces Adesanya, 30, this Saturday at UFC 248 in Las Vegas. He certainly has a plan in mind, however. And that includes putting ‘The Last Stylebender’ away early.
“I don’t want to go too crazy hard, but I need to finish the fight,” said Romero. “Me and my team have a plan to knock him out. When he makes that one little mistake, boom.”
