Israel Adesanya’s glittering MMA career has entered “do or die” territory.
On Saturday, Riyadh will play host to Adesanya’s first non-title fight in almost six years. How it fares could very well determine whether the “Last Stylebender” will ever compete for UFC gold again.
After an era of comfortable domination at middleweight, Adesanya goes into his five-round headliner against Nassourdine Imavov off the back of two very different losses. The first, 17 months ago, stunned the fighting world into gaping-mouthed silence. Putting on a performance that paled in comparison to what we had come to expect from Adesanya, he was roundly beaten up by heavy underdog Sean Strickland over 25 minutes, losing his belt in emphatic fashion.
That night, UFC president Dana White lost a champion he had come to rely on for mainstream attention, instead forced to wrap the strap around the waste of Strickland, an ever-outspoken sponsor’s nightmare. But you only needed to look at the scorecards to see just how deserving of a title win it was – and with that, a new dawn had been ushered in at 185lb.
The defeat sent Adesanya on an extended period of self-reflection, away from the Octagon. He told New Zealand radio show The Rock: “I’m going to take time to look after myself, and I’m not going to fight for a long time.”
Having previously averaged two or three fights a year, Adesanya stuck to his word and would not be seen in the cage until 11 months later, when a unique rival came calling.
By this point, the middleweight champion was Dricus Du Plessis, who had previously engaged in a dispute with Adesanya over the uncomfortable topic of who was Africa’s true fighting representative. That set up an obvious grudge match between Nigerian-born Adesanya and the South African.
After such an off-the-pace display against Strickland, it was quickly apparent that Adesanya had come on leaps and bounds in his time off. He looked to be executing his gameplan with aplomb against Du Plessis, working the body brilliantly and pushing the new champion to his limits as the pair fought into the championship rounds.
However, those late rounds can be the most defining in the cage, and as Du Plessis appeared to be tiring, he hurt Adesanya with a crucial right hand. From there, he pounced on the former champ’s back before locking in a face crank, forcing the tap and retaining his title. Even with a much-improved performance, Adesanya was once again defeated.
More crucially, his fighting future was left resting on a knife edge, where it remains in the present day.
Now fighting for contendership instead of gold, a win in Saudi Arabia is a must if Adesanya intends to become the UFC’s first three-time middleweight champion. Anything else will cast him further away from the title picture and could even spell retirement. His route back to the throne is anything but easy, and his test against Imavov could prove telling.
On a three-fight tear, Imavov is getting a taste for the main event now; Saturday’s is his fourth in the UFC, with two of his previous three going down as wins. Last time out, in September, the Frenchman soaked up home adulation as he ground out a decision win over Brendan Allen in Paris, shooting him to fifth in the middleweight rankings. Far more in-form than Adesanya, Imavov is vying for title contention for the first time, and the 28-year-old will be desperate to add a divisional great to his resume.
In fact, Adesanya may already be the greatest to ever fight at 185lb – a debate that puts him up against Hall of Famer Anderson Silva. And with Adesanya’s successes far outnumbering his failures, he is minded to focus on the rewards of a win over Imavov, not the prospect of a third straight loss – or never regaining the title.
“I’m not thinking like that,” Adesanya told MMA Fighting via Stake.com. “I’m just going in there ready to dominate. I’m not thinking, ‘I don’t want another loss.’ That’s a weird way to frame it, because [I’d just be] thinking of what I don’t want. [If] you’re tapping into that, ‘Oh, I can’t lose, I can’t lose,’ your brain just recognizes ‘lose, lose, lose’.
It remains to be seen which Adesanya will appear on Saturday. We could witness a further rejuvenated Izzy, who has built on his encouraging performance versus Du Plessis. Or perhaps he will regress to the tired, uninspired Adesanya who lost the belt – potentially proving the Du Plessis display as a final, failing burst towards his old throne, leaving him with gatekeeping or money fights before retirement.
Either way, Adesanya is not contemplating defeat. His mind, as it should, is only telling him to “win”.
