{"id":114970,"date":"2025-09-03T06:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T06:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/114970\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T06:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T06:01:07","slug":"israel-adesanya-picks-against-former-opponent-ahead-of-marquee-paris-main-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/114970\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Adesanya picks against former opponent ahead of marquee Paris main event"},"content":{"rendered":"

You will be hard pressed to find someone more qualified to speak on the current state of the UFC middleweight division than long-reigning champion Israel Adesanya.<\/p>\n

The Last Stylebender was king of the 185-pounders for nearly four-years, and is still mixing it with the top contenders at 36-years-of-age.<\/p>\n

After Khamzat Chimaev won the middleweight belt at UFC 319 in August, there is a sense of new life in the division, with several contenders trying to line up their own title shot in the near future.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Jack Della Maddalena tipped to derail Islam Makhachev\u2019s two-division title ambitions<\/a><\/p>\n

Two such contenders will face off this coming weekend in Paris, as Nassourdine Imavov and Caio\u00a0Borralho do battle in a five-round main event.<\/p>\n

Imavov built his name off the back of a stunning knockout win over Adesanya earlier this year in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

The two had a back-and-forth affair before an overhand right into ground punches from the Dagestani-Frenchman extended Adesanya’s current losing streak to three.<\/p>\n

In a recent video on his YouTube channel<\/a>, the former champion was complimentary of Imavov’s style, but believes\u00a0Borralho has the skills to get the job done.<\/p>\n

“Imavov is tough, he\u2019s hard to finish,” said Adesanya.<\/p>\n

“If he\u2019s able to push you behind the black [boundary] line, then he\u2019s able to get his work going. That\u2019s where he does his best work from.<\/p>\n

“I like this fight. I think this is a well-matched fight stylistically.<\/p>\n

“Caio is going to get his hand raised at the end.”<\/p>\n

As the UFC rankings are currently constituted, Imavov sits at number two at middleweight, while Barralho is down at number seven.<\/p>\n

According to The Last Stylebender, the winner will “most likely” be next in line for a shot at Chimaev, and with the state of the division, there’s also a case to be made that the loser could be matched with a rebounding Adesanya in his next fight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You will be hard pressed to find someone more qualified to speak on the current state of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-114970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}