{"id":563356,"date":"2026-03-25T13:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T13:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/563356\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T13:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T13:00:08","slug":"adesanya-critiques-khamzat-he-should-be-an-active-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/563356\/","title":{"rendered":"Adesanya critiques Khamzat: \u2018He should be an active champion\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel Adesanya returns to action this weekend at UFC Seattle<\/a> against Joe Pyfer, and despite not having the middleweight title any more he does have thoughts on current champion Khamzat Chimaev.<\/p>\n

From 2019 to 2024, all twelve of Adesanya\u2019s fights had him either fighting for or defending a belt. He\u2019s fallen out of the contender\u2019s circle after three losses in a row, and now it\u2019s Khamzat Chimaev<\/a> who sits atop the 185 pound division. The only problem? \u201cBorz\u201d isn\u2019t active enough for Izzy\u2019s taste.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did well to get the belt, but I\u2019m not sure what\u2019s holding him up or why,\u201d Adesanya told Paramount\u2019s Brian Campbell. \u201cMaybe it was visa issues. I\u2019m not sure. I don\u2019t really follow the MMA news as much, so I\u2019m not sure what\u2019s holding it up. Because I felt like he would be an active champion. He should be an active champion because he\u2019s a guy that likes to fight a lot when he was coming up, just like me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when I got the belt, I didn\u2019t let that slow me down. I was active. I was calling out everybody. I was trying to find the best and fight them, so I think he should be doing the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adesanya fought an impressive four times during his UFC rookie year in 2018, then got three fights in for 2019 and 2022. He never fought less than twice a year while holding the belt. Chimaev had that legendary fast start in 2020 with three fights in three months,<\/a> only to fight once a year over the past three years. He won the belt in August 2025, and is finally set to defend it<\/a> for the first time against Sean Strickland in May, nine months later.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he can [win] if it goes to the later rounds and he doesn\u2019t get taken down,\u201d Adesanya said of the UFC 328 title fight. \u201cBut Chimaev is a bat out of hell. He\u2019s a guy that comes aggressively straight away and Strickland can match that probably, but we\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they\u2019ve trained together, so this is probably something that already happened in the gym that we are not privy to. So yeah, it\u2019ll be interesting, and I look forward to watching it and reacting to it on YouTube.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, Adesanya will continue to spend UFC Seattle fight week answering questions about his skid<\/a> and whether he can end it against Joe Pyfer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very determined [to win] and it\u2019s not even about the losing skid,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just to perform. I really wanna perform, because when I perform, wins comes, the gold comes. So yeah, my main focus this weekend is just to perform, and I know I can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel Adesanya returns to action this weekend at UFC Seattle against Joe Pyfer, and despite not having the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,1396],"class_list":["post-563356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563356","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=563356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}