Yoel Romero plans on knocking out Israel Adesanya to win the UFC middleweight title.

In the main event of UFC 248, Romero, who is on a two-fight losing streak is getting a title shot due to Paulo Costa being injured. However, the Cuban believes he won his last two scraps against the aforementioned Brazilian and Robert Whittaker. Yet, the judges saw different, so in this fight, the Cuban knows he has to finish the contest and is planning to knock Adesanya out.

“Of course I’ve got to finish. I don’t want to go too crazy hard, but I need to finish the fight,” Romero said at a media luncheon. “Me and my team have the plan to knock him out.”

For when he will knock Israel Adesanya out, Romero says it can happen in any round. All he needs is to have the champ make one mistake and the fight will be over.

“When he makes the little one mistake, boom,” he said as to when the knockout would happen.

Romero has a ton of knockout power as evident by his wins over Luke Rockhold and Chris Weidman among others. But, lately, although he has dropped both Whittaker and Costa he was not able to knock them out. So, whether he will be able to do that against Adesanya remains to be seen.

Israel Adesanya, meanwhile, is entering this fight with a perfect 18-0 record including being 7-0 inside the Octagon. He’s looking for his first title defense against the Cuban where the pros are expecting him to get his hand raised. Yet, he will avoid the power shot, and whether he will be able to do that is unknown.

Do you think we will see Yoel Romero knock Israel Adesanya out at UFC 248? Sound off in the comment section, PENN Nation!

This article first appeared on BJPENN.com on 3/4/2020.