Follow the action as Israel Adesanya returns to the UFC octagon against Joe Pyfer in Seattle.
“F***, it’s almost a decade, ay? 2018. That’s crazy.”
True to form, Israel Adesanya makes no attempt to censor himself as we meet at City Kickboxing’s Morningside headquarters on a beautiful Wednesday morning to discuss his UFC career to date.
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That authenticity has long been part of the charm of the only two-time UFC middleweight champion, and it’s fitting the most recent interview should start in a similarly colourful fashion to our first, back in January 2018, when he was preparing for his UFC debut against Rob Wilkinson.
Winning that fight by second-round TKO set The Last Stylebender on track to what would become one of the greatest runs in the division’s history; the new dog in the yard, hungry and ready to claim the division as his territory.
Within 15 months of that debut, Adesanya had fought another five times, including two main events, and claimed the interim title, which he turned into the undisputed belt later in 2019.
During an interview in 2019, Adesanya told me he knew how to clock the game. Now, asked to revisit that line as he prepares for his UFC Seattle headliner against rising American Joe Pyfer, the 36-year-old admires his work.
“That’s actually a good one, ‘I know how to clock this game’. I feel like, to be honest, yeah,” Adesanya tells the Herald.
“But you know when you clock a game and you still have other missions to complete? Like, there’s the main mission, the story mission, but you still have the side missions where it’s, ‘I’ll do that after I’ve clocked the game’, I’m kind of on that now.”
To date, Adesanya has held the UFC middleweight title twice. He holds the second-longest winning streak in the division with 12 in a row, is tied for the most knockdowns in the middleweight division (13), and is tied for the third-most post-fight bonuses in the division (eight). He was also inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame last year for his fight against American Kelvin Gastelum in which he won the interim title.
It’s a record No 14-ranked Pyfer praises. The American, who had hoped to train with No 4-ranked Adesanya as he never expected he’d get a chance to share the octagon with him, tells the Herald he holds his opponent in high regard.
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“I told him I wanted to train with him at some point, I think it’d be cool,” Pyfer says of a past meeting with Adesanya.
“I think he’s one of the better kickboxers in our division. I think he’s the middleweight goat, so yeah, it didn’t happen, but maybe after this fight.”
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.
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