Israel Adesanya Quotes a Ridiculously High Amount for Moving Over to Boxing

Crossovers between MMA and boxing are gaining more traction with time. Boxers and mixed martial artist are talking more and more about stepping into each other’s domain. While some bring it up only to keep their name relevant, others want a hefty price for a crossover. But none of them would have ever quoted a price as high as UFC middleweight champ Israel Adesanya.

Talking to James Lynch of theScoreMMA, Adesanya revealed that he had no interest in moving over to boxing. The host asked Adesanya if he wanted to see Conor McGregor make a return to boxing. Instead of talking about McGregor, Adesanya moved along a different tangent. He narrated an incident from the previous night. As it turned out, he was watching a video of ace boxer Floyd Mayweather during a media sparring.

“I was just watching and I paused and I turned towards my brother and I said, ‘I could never do it,’ said Adesanya. “For me to compromise my self as a mixed martial artist, I could never do it. I have already been to boxing. I am 6-1 in boxing. That 1 was also a robbery because I rocked that m*********er up. They just didn’t want a guy with no experience coming in there and shutting their best guy up.”

Israel Adesanya believes he can make 100 million dollars fighting in the UFC

From what Adesanya said till now it was clear that he had no interest in leaving the Octagon. Therefore, he quoted exorbitantly high amounts of money for stepping into the ring. This wasn’t surprising at all. What was a bit shocking to hear was the amount Adesanya thought he could make while staying in the UFC.

“First of all who would I box and why would I box?”, Adesanya replied to his brother when the latter pressed him on the issue. “Come on man! There’s gotta be a number. A hundred million?” his brother asked. “Na. I can do that in the UFC. I’m thinking a billion dollars. I’ll box for a billion,” Adesanya replied.

“That’s my number. That’s what would make me decide to step inside with another man and I take away 90% of my weapons. More than 90% if you take into account my grappling which you haven’t seen yet. So, I’ll box for a billion, but that could be silly,” he added. To put into perspective 

Adesanya defended his middleweight crown against Yoel Romero last month. Being not very satisfied with the way the match was received, he is already looking forward to his next opponent. “The Last Stylebender” plans to put his belt on the line against Paulo Costa later this year.