UFC 293: Tyson Pedro reveals advice from Israel Adesanya to deal with online hate after most recent UFC appearance turned sour

UFC light heavyweight Tyson Pedro has revealed advice from Israel Adesanya helped him to realign his outlook on the sport following the fallout of Pedro’s most recent appearance in the octagon.

The 31-year-old suffered aunanimous decision loss to Modestas Bukauskas at UFC 284 in Perth in February in an uncharacteristically lacklustre performance. It was later revealed that he was suffering from a nasty bout of gastro and was taken to hospital following the bout.

He went into the fight as a massive favourite with the bookies, given his opponent was a late-notice replacement who had not been re-signed by UFC after going 1-3 in his first contract with the promotion.

Pedro was greeted on social media by plenty of vile messages after the fight and said a piece of advice from City Kickboxing teammate Adesanya played a big part in him dealing with the hate.

“Some of the messages I was getting – people were messaging my wife and messaging me – were terrible, and I understand, but I don’t sympathise because a lot of it was to do with betting,” Pedro said.

“I don’t give a f*** about your bets; I lost $100,000 easily from sponsorships, losing the contracts, so when people are messaging me about betting and stuff like that, it pisses me off, especially as soon as you get family involved, I’m messaging ‘hey where are you? I’ll meet up’ because some of the stuff in the messages, it’s like ‘bro, you forget why we’re fighters’. I had to just pull myself back in and reset, but it made me go ‘f*** this. Why am I doing it?’ but once I found my true north again and why I’m really doing it, it doesn’t really matter about what happens.

“Izzy was a part of that. It was during the time when we went to Miami and I just asked him ‘bro, you deal with a lot of hate. What’s your (secret)?’ and from my understanding, the way he explained it was whether it’s positive energy or negative energy, it’s energy. It’s about how you use it. That was my perception of it, and I think that allowed me to realign and forget after it.”

After a few months off, Pedro will return to the octagon at UFC 293 in Sydney in September against Sweden’s Anton Turkalj, sharing the card with Adesanya and four more of their teammates from Auckland’s City Kickboxing gym.

Since the loss in February, Pedro has taken Adesanya’s advice and reassessed his approach to the sport.

Now, refreshed and refocused, Pedro will look to get his hand raised once more in his hometown.

“It made me a bit jaded about the fans,” Pedro said of the UFC 284 fallout.

“That was the most heat I’ve received afterwards, which threw me off a little bit. It’s hard to make sense when you go out and put everything on the line – I know it was a terrible performance, but for what I was going through I felt like I had a crack – but afterwards I was trying to figure it out. It made me take a step back and think about why I’m doing this. I thought it was always for the fans, to put on a show, and so it was ‘if not for them, then who is it?’

“I got to spend a lot of time with my daughter and family, and it made me really get back to focus on why I started, why I want to do this and why I’m fighting.”

Confirmed card for UFC 293 in Sydney

Middleweight title fight: Israel Adesanya (NZ) v Sean Strickland

Flyweight: Kai Kara-France (NZ) v Manel Kape

Light heavyweight: Carlos Ulberg (NZ) v Da Woon Jung

Featherweight: Shane Young (NZ) v Gabriel Miranda

Welterweight: Blood Diamond (NZ) v Charles Radtke

Heavyweight: Justin Tafa (NZ) v Austen Lane

Light heavyweight: Tyson Pedro (Aus) v Anton Turkalj

Heavyweight: Tai Tuivasa (Aus) v Alexander Volkov

Featherweight: Jack Jenkins (Aus) v Chepe Mariscal

Lightweight: Jamie Mullarkey (Aus) v John Makdessi