The provocative words blazed across a rival news website:

"Adesanya's terrifying trash talk" it said. Having already read the thread of the story I, like most I'm sure upon seeing that headline, sighed and thought "here we go again, just another clickbait".

Sure enough, the exaggerative alliteration had precious little to do with the story's actual content, the tabloid nature of the expose designed purely to attract the eyes into tempting the forefinger.

What had happened was that Israel Adesanya while being interviewed about his next opponent made an ill-thought off-the-cuff comment which included a reference to "sending the bloke toppling to the ground like the Twin Trade Towers" - or words to that effect.

Several dozen anonymous trolls then expressed their considerable outrage across social media and those comments were then picked up by this rival mainstream media outlet and turned into a front page "major new story".

Love it or loathe it, this in a nutshell is a great example of how tacky and irrelevant much of our "mainstream" news has now become. Half the "news" these days is nothing but a lazy cobbling together of kneejerk reaction from social media.

"Disgusting" was one view expressed in this (so-called) story. The stronger the language and outrage the sentiment, the more perfect the fodder for this new wave tabloid trash. And that is exactly and only what it is.

What Israel said was silly. We all, him included, agree on that. If only he'd said something like "I'll topple him like 9 pins" or "blow him over like a house of cards" then (apart from some offended 10 pin bowler or poker player somewhere) it wouldn't have even made a headline.

What he meant was a colourful description of what he intends to do with his next unfortunate opponent. What he didn't mean was any real or imagined insult aimed at those who died and are left permanently scarred following the 911 terrorist attacks. And any ignoramus should be able to figure that out. No he shouldn't have used the words he did and no he shouldn't also have been forced to publicly apologise for a genuine mistake.

I don't believe anything he said is a reflection at all on him as a person, his character, his beliefs, what goes on in his mind and/or his heart. What is does reflect though is the inane attitude of a sensationalist meaningless forgotten-by-Friday mainstream media that not only thrives on this rubbish it actively encourages it.

And this, I think, is exactly what he was trying to explain by his "tall poppy" references at the Halberg Awards. The microscopic obsessive irrelevance of every little thing being watched and judged by every little person.

In fact it's not tall poppy, but it is Tu Meke.