-
Sam Bruce, Deputy Editor, espn.com.au
As the countdown to one of the most anticipated fights in recent UFC history enters its finals days, and the tension builds towards its natural crescendo, one big question remains unanswered: What has 11 months out of the sport done to former middleweight champion Israel Adesanya?
“The Last Stylebender” makes his long-awaited return against Dricus du Plessis on Sunday AEST [Saturday night ET on ESPN+] in the headline event of UFC 305, a showdown 12 months in the making and one the promotion could have almost let market itself.
Such has been the exchange of words — a true UFC beef — that the fight might have taken an unofficial headstart, that the duo might have thrown down after du Plessis’ win over Robert Whittaker in July 2023, or when they faced off in Perth on the promotional tour just last month.
But rewind back to 2023 as Adesanya and du Plessis looked set to meet before the year was out, or at least early in 2024, and the Nigerian-born New Zealander’s shock loss to Sean Strickland took the prospect of that matchup off the table.
Just like that, Adesanya was gone.
“That was definitely the straw that broke the camel’s back, because it’s not just the fights it’s the camp as well, the training, that’s what really got to me and my body just wasn’t right,” Adesanya told ESPN of his decision to step away from the sport.
“I had to go and get my body right, get my mind right … I was the most active champion in UFC history, five fights in 18 months, it takes a toll on the body and the mind. So it was just good to remove myself from all of that and just live the Izzy life.”
When Adesanya reflects on his accomplishments, it’s not hard to see how they eventually all caught up with him.
After winning six straight fights to earn his shot at the middleweight title, against Whittaker, Adesanya’s seventh foray into the Octagon finished with UFC CEO Dana White wrapping the middleweight strap around his waist in front of a record crowd at Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium.
He then embarked on five successful title defences, and even stepped up to light heavyweight to challenge Jan Blachowicz for a second belt for good measure, before the intertwining roads of combat sports brought him back to old foe Alex Pereira.
What followed was first a loss, and then the regaining, of the middleweight title, sweet redemption arriving in the form of first ever win over the Brazilian coming via a second-round KO.
If Adesanya had then, at 33, placed his gloves in the centre of the Octagon to mark his retirement, fight fans across the globe would not have begrudged his exit, such had been the narrative of his rivalry with Pereira.
But then it all came undone against Strickland. Suddenly there were questions about Adesanya’s hunger; did the champion still have the drive, desire and willingness to put in the work to stay at the top?
Ask du Plessis, as ESPN did on Wednesday, and the South African will tell you that Adesanya is a man who is “trying to convince himself how badly he wants to be here,” at least that’s what he saw when the two looked into each other’s eyes at the face-off in Perth last month.
Adesanya, unsurprisingly, has a different take.
“Hell no. Na, not that,” he replied when asked whether hunger was indeed an issue.
“I’m human at the end of the day, and there is only so much I can do and there is only so much I can put my body through. So I needed to take a break and let my body heal.”
What Adesanya has undertaken then in the past 11 months has been almost a journey of discovery, one he has traversed simultaneously alongside two of his City Kickboxing teammates Kai Kara-France and Dan Hooker, who also make their returns from year-long layoffs this weekend.
For Kara-France it was concussion, Hooker back-to-back broken arms, but while the trio was sidelined the famed Auckland gym, led by coach Eugene Bareman, also set about reinvention; if three of their top fighters had almost reached their limits, then maybe it was time for a change?
“For example, the timetable at our gym, we reshuffled the deck,” Adesanya explains. “We kept what was useful, moved around what wasn’t useful on certain days, and discarded a few things.
“A lot’s happened in nine months, by the time I step into that Octagon it will have been almost a year [since the Strickland fight] and a lot of changes in myself have happened in myself in a year, a lot of growth, patience, and just levelling up really in all aspects.”
A delve into Adesanya’s social media accounts reveals time with the New Zealand Performance Institute, where he says he tracked his “progression” after setting some baseline stats; there has also been “breath work”, again as a means of “levelling up” and then, surprisingly, there was golf.
“I didn’t think that was going to be a big talking point, but golf is nice, but more just patience, solitude,” he explained. “All camp it’s just been eat, sleep, train, that’s been my MO this camp.”
If you ask Kara-France, the combination of all that, and the changes that have occurred at City Kickboxing have sparked something in Adesanya, most notably in the former champion’s attitude.
“Just very professional. He’s always been a guy who just does everything, but I guess he’s getting a bit older now and knowing that he’s probably only got a few more years left in him, he wants to do it the right way and give himself the best chance [of success],” Kara-France said of his teammate.
“Just seeing his professionalism in everything he’s doing, what he’s putting in his body, what he’s doing outside training. [He’s] coming in early, whereas old Issy might have just been coming in on time and straight onto the mats, but he’s here an hour early or half-an-hour early doing the right things just to warm up and to prepare his body.
“That rubs off on the rest of the team because if the champ is doing it then we need to be doing it as well. But it’s good to see that he’s motivated, he wants to get this one back, he wants to get this one over Dricus.”
Hooker, similarly, sees a different fighter.
“He’s scary inside the gym. Usually I’m chomping at his heels like a little chihuahua, trying to piss him off, but this camp I’ve stayed right away from him,” Hooker told ESPN.
“But he’s scary, he’s 100% now, he’s taken some time off to get his body to the position it needs to be in and I’m expecting big things.”
This weekend’s fight is effectively Adesanya’s third pursuit of the middleweight title. He first took it from Whittaker, lost it to Pereira, and then briefly had it back on the mantlepiece before the shock loss to Strickland in Sydney last September. But as he approaches what looms as the curtain call stretch of his combat sports career, he says it’s no longer about the belts, the focus is far more personal.
“[I’m] coming for heads. Belts gather up dust, they rust,” Adesanya said. “But taking away someone’s name, being a loss on their record that sticks, that’s what I’m doing. So I’m taking these guys out while I’m still here and I can feel like ‘I beat that guy’.”
If the belt is no longer a motivator, then delivering for the “Three Kings” is a decent substitute.
Du Plessis’ claims that he would be the first “African UFC champion” in the way that he has always trained and eventually ascended to the belt from South Africa, unlike Adesanya, Kamaru Usman and Francis Ngannou who all achieved title success off the continent, have been bubbling away at the heart of this contest for over a year.
In response, Adesanya has accused du Plessis of having a “colonist mindset,” insisting that it was he, Usman and Ngannou who laid the platform for du Plessis, that they “paved the way for the whole continent to dream,” as he told ESPN on Wednesday.
Just how all that boils over in Perth this weekend remains to be seen, but if the headline event is as good as the last time the UFC was in town — for UFC 284, Islam Makhachev vs. Alexander Volkanovski — then those fortunate enough to be inside RAC Arena will have got their money’s worth, and then some.
A win, meanwhile, for Adesanya would further etch his name into UFC history as being only the second three-time champion in UFC history alongside Randy Couture and bring him to eight middleweight title wins, second only to Anderson Silva [11].
Yet again, Adesanya’s new outlook almost casts those milestones aside.
“It would be history, I guess, but I’m not really what I’m focused on, I’m focused on Dricus,” he told ESPN. “I just have to focus on Dricus because if I focus on him, everything else follows, everything else follows.
“I don’t focus on the belt, I don’t focus on the accolades, I just focus on taking his head off and the rest will follow.”