Israel Adesanya’s coach saw positives out of his fight against UFC middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis.
Adesanya (24-4 MMA, 13-4 UFC) was submitted by Du Plessis in their middleweight title fight, which headlined UFC 305 in Perth. Adesanya failed to regain his belt after an 11-month hiatus, but he had his moments before getting stopped in Round 4.
The momentum appeared to swing Adesanya’s way in Round 4, before Du Plessis tagged him with a big combination. Du Plessis (22-2 MMA, 8-0 UFC) capitalized by jumping onto the submission, and City Kickboxing’s striking coach, Mike Angove, praised the champion for his will to win.
“Israel showed that he’s quite capable of getting Dricus out of there,” Angove told Submission Radio. “But Dricus also showed what he showed all along, which is that he’s an absolute dog. He’s always looking for an opportunity to win. He will never give up. He was hurt on multiple occasions in that fight, and you know, he took that victory, and he’s done that again and again and again.
“We’ve seen him in other fights where he’s been on the backfoot, and he’s found a way to win, and he’s shown that indomitable will to win. So, we’ve got to credit him for that. That said, I feel like it was a fight we probably let slip away a little bit. Just a couple of mistakes, but I think those mistakes come from a little bit of fatigue, potentially, and that can be attributable to time out of the game. Just making a few readjustments to what we do with our (strength) and (conditioning).”
Angove wasn’t too discouraged from Adesanya’s performance. He thinks “The Last Stylebender” still has what it takes to compete at the top, despite losing three of his past four fights.
“We know that Dricus has a great back take. He’s got a number of submissions,” Angove said. “He’s very quick to take that back, and that’s something you need to be aware of the whole time, and we made that mistake, and we paid for it. Look, how does he look like he did against Strickland, which to be fair there’s a few issues that led to that.
“We would have been sitting in a different position, but Israel looks like he has the ability to come back and have a resurgence, if you like, in his career. He showed that he’s more than capable of of taking out anyone in that division, including Dricus. And you know, we’ll see him back in the gym very shortly, as soon as he’s back from Africa and looking to plan our next steps.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 305.
