UFC champion Israel Adesanya has come under criticism following his comment that he would “rape” a fellow fighter.
New Zealand’s deputy prime minister Grant Robertson knocked Adesanya over the remark, saying rape should not be something toyed with.
Adesanya had posted to his 4.6 million Instagram followers a video where he says “Bro, I will fuckin’ rape you” to Kevin Holland who had targeted him with a series of insulting remarks. The post was later deleted.
Condemning the remark, Mr Robertson, who is also New Zealand’s minister for sport, said: “We have to take rape seriously. It’s not an issue that anyone should be making jokes or flippant comments about at all.”
He added in an interview with Radio New Zealand: “I’m sure Israel understands that, I believe he has deleted the tweet [sic] in question. It will be up to the UFC as to what they do.”
Adesanya, who was born in Nigeria, has been a New Zealand citizen since he was 10.
His latest vile taunt, aimed at middleweight contender Holland, comes in the wake of his first defeat in the UFC.
He failed in his bid to become a two-weight champion against light-heavyweight king Jan Blachowicz earlier this month.
It is not the first time that Adesanya, 31, has been in the spotlight for ill-considered remarks.
In early 2020 he apologised after threatening to make his opponent Yoel Romero “crumble like the Twin Towers”.
He was also criticised for pretending to hump Paulo Costa after flooring him in their September fight and saying ‘I’m going to c** all over you’ after he had won the fight.
Adesanya has not responded directly to criticism of the rape comment. However, he tweeted to his over 800,000 followers after the story went viral: “Incoming clickbait NZ media in 3, 2, 1… This is what it’s all about…CLOUT!!”
