At the tail end of a prefight news conference, after nearly a half-hour of the two sparring verbally, Vettori got up to confront Adesanya twice with UFC president Dana White holding him back and security intervening.
It was one of the toughest fights of Adesanya’s run to the 185-pound title, and the two have harbored bad blood since then.
During the news conference, Adesanya and Vettori went back and forth repeatedly, trading expletives and trash talk.
Vettori relaxed momentarily, but then screamed and knocked his own sunglasses away while Adesanya continued his verbal barrage.
Adesanya then threw something small at Vettori when Vettori sat back down, though it was unclear what it was.
The Nigerian-born New Zealand native is coming off a loss in a light heavyweight title fight to Jan Blachowicz at UFC 259 in March.
The Italy native, who fights out of Orange County, California, has won five straight.