You know why it's not comparable? It's right there, you just typed it all yourself honey. Adesanya had a long journey where he actually had to grow like a real MMA fighter to get a legit path to the title.
Poatan, as much as I love him, was favorably matched up from day 1 so he could be fast tracked to a lucrative title fight because he was lucky enough to have a big dramatic history with the champ.
You would have a point if Poatan came to this level on merit. But no. He never even beat a high level opponent with a grappling background.
This can be done many more times with that kind of matchmaking. But it hardly happens because all of those many decorated world class kickboxers never amounted to much in MMA because they weren't favorably fast tracked like that.
Only a fool can't see the big picture here and still thinks this case "makes MMA look bad". Same with the Jake Paul BS. Think, kids. The big picture. The context.