Israel Adesanya has criticised MMA manager Ali Abdelaziz after he suggested Kamaru Usman should fight the middleweight champion.
Abdelaziz suggested welterweight champion Usman, who is managed by Dominance MMA, should defend his belt against Leon Edwards and then move up to fight Adesanya.
Adesanya and Usman, who were both born in Nigeria, are good friends and have ruled out the possibility of fighting each other in the UFC.
Fresh off of his recent UFC 271 title defence, Adesanya couldn't see why Abdelaziz would suggest the matchup as both fighters can make big paydays with other opponents.
"It bothers me as well. Like what the f*** is this peanut head talking about? I've gone on record and said I don't like this fight," Adesanya said on ' The MMA Hour '.
"It's bigger than us. I understand where he's coming from. Don't get me wrong... but you can make tens of millions other ways.
"There's so many other fights you can make. He needs to give his fighters his phone back, cause sometimes he gets on there [social media] and talk all this rubbish.
"This fight, it's bigger than us. The great nation of Africa, we've got three people who are champions right now and defending it within their divisions with an iron black fist."
Usman was so against the idea of fighting Adesanya he even considered jumping up two weight classes to face Jan Blachowicz, who at the time was the light heavyweight champion.
'The Nigerian Nightmare' would have had the chance to become a two-weight champion if he fought then-champion Blachowicz.
But it was Adesanya who moved up to face the hard-hitting Polish fighter, suffering the first loss of his professional career to him.
Usman recently underwent hand surgery and is expected to return to the octagon in July to defend his belt against No.3 ranked contender Leon Edwards.
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'The Last Stylebender' has since defended his middleweight title twice since moving back down to 185-pounds, outpointing Marvin Vettori before his win against Whittaker.
And Adesanya thinks his and Usman's story is part of "sports history" and will inspire people from Nigeria.
He continued: "This is legendary, they're gonna talk about this sports history and just in history in general. So, why try to divide and conquer?
"The way peanut head did it was just disgusting, I usually kind of express the way we do it in our gym and the code that we have.
"Like I said, me and Kamaru definitely feel the same way. What's the point? This is bigger than us, kids are gonna look at us generations from now and be like 'those guys from Nigeria, they did that'".
