{"id":343039,"date":"2020-03-03T06:40:30","date_gmt":"2020-03-03T14:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=343039"},"modified":"2020-03-03T06:40:30","modified_gmt":"2020-03-03T14:40:30","slug":"yoel-romero-defends-controversial-middleweight-title-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/yoel-romero-defends-controversial-middleweight-title-shot\/","title":{"rendered":"Yoel Romero defends controversial middleweight title shot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yoel Romero is on a two-fight losing streak, having given up competitive decisions to Paulo Costa and Robert Whittaker in his last two fights. Nonetheless, the Cuban Olympian has been granted the next shot at UFC middleweight champ Israel Adesanya. The pair will collide in the main event of UFC 248 this Saturday in Las Vegas, Nevada.<\/p>\n<p>Given that Romero is on a losing streak, many fans have been critical of his receiving a title shot. Romero himself, however, isn&#8217;t sweating this criticism.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at a media day on Monday in Los Angeles, the ferocious middleweight defended his title shot. He reminded that Adesanya asked for this matchup after Costa got injured, and claimed that he should have gotten the nod in his recent wars with Costa and Whittaker.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not thinking about that I lost two fights,\u201d Romero said (via <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/2020\/03\/yoel-romero-decision-loss-israel-adesanya-ufc-248\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">MMA Junkie<\/a>). \u201cI\u2019m not feeling like this. This doesn\u2019t have my attention because we do this like the old school. The best don\u2019t want to fight, but need to fight the best. When (Adesanya) says something like this, I\u2019m not thinking about the record. I\u2019m not thinking about nothing. I just want to fight the best in the division. He said, \u2018I want to fight Yoel.\u2019 I say, \u2018Thank you.\u2019 Because that\u2019s exactly what we do. I stay in the same position with him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t want to fight with No. 10 in the rankings. I want to fight with the next in line \u2013 the No. 1 in the line. That\u2019s why I stay here. I don\u2019t stay here because nobody give me nothing. I work a lot \u2013 very hard. I won the (Paulo Costa) fight, the (Robert) Whittaker No. 2 fight. It is what it is \u2013 that\u2019s what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Do you think Yoel Romero deserves a middleweight title shot despite his recent setbacks?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>This article first appeared on\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>BJPENN.com<\/i><\/span><\/a><i> on 3\/3\/2020.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yoel Romero is on a two-fight losing streak, having given up competitive decisions to Paulo Costa and Robert Whittaker in his last two fights. Nonetheless, the Cuban Olympian has been granted the next shot at UFC middleweight champ Israel Adesanya. The pair will collide in the main event of UFC 248 this Saturday in Las [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54430,"featured_media":322638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[39610,10179],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Yoel Romero defends controversial middleweight title shot | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yoel Romero is on a two-fight losing streak, having given up competitive decisions to Paulo Costa and Robert Whittaker in his last two fights.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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