The T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada hosted the UFC 276 fight week press conference.
Fighters in attendance included UFC Middleweight Champion Israel Adesanya, Number two ranked Middleweight contender Jared Cannonier, UFC Featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski, Number one contender Max Holloway, Sean Strickland, Alex Pereira, Sean O’Malley, Pedro Munhoz, Robbie Lawler, Bryan Barberana.
My biggest takeaway from the Press Conference.
Israel Adesanya came in looking calm, cool, and collected. The champion even promised to make the challenger look like easy work. Both champ and challenger did argue back an fourth about that proclamation. Jared Cannonier is not one for the build, continuing his mantra of focusing on himself and his energy. In a surprise to most Max Holloway came out spitting fire playing some mind games with his rival, but both men did announce they respect each other.
Volkanovski said Max was to stubborn to let the number one contender slot go. Holloway said he like Volkanovski’s cooking channel on Youtube. Some of Max’s best lines included saying that he was “a volcano about to erupt”, he (Volkanovski) doesn’t have three highlights in the UFC”, and “I take damage and he (Volkanovski) doesn’t do any. Holloway definitely had the crowd on his side. The champion announced that he “was feeding off all the boos. The emotions a third meeting has raised the intensity between the two. Surprisingly Sean O’Malley was not as vocal as previous media functions leading me to believe he is very concerned with the challenge ahead of him.
Former UFC Welterweight champion Robbie Lawler & his opponent Bryan Barberena kept it simple promising to put on Fight of Night. Heading into the press conference many wondered allowed what we’d get from Sean Strickland. And that joker came out the deck wild as possible winning the crowd over. Strickland while being playful tried his best to get under the skin of the bring up Adesanya’s two losses in kickboxing to Alex Pereira. The number four ranked contender brought up politics, anima, steroids among getting a jovial response from all in attendance. It’s Thursday tensions are and all parties look confident of victory.
