{"id":435445,"date":"2026-01-27T01:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T01:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/435445\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T01:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T01:38:12","slug":"israel-adesanya-compares-pimblett-gaethje-to-iconic-tuf-1-finale-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/435445\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Adesanya compares Pimblett-Gaethje to iconic TUF 1 Finale fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel Adesanya recently likened the Paddy Pimblett vs. Justin Gaethje fight to the paradigm shift-enacting fight between Stephan Bonnar and Forrest Griffin in 2005 at the inaugural Ultimate Fighter season finale. UFC 324 kicked off the new media rights deal on Paramount and saw Justin Gaethje achieve the unprecedented feat of becoming a two-time interim UFC champ when he bested Paddy Pimblett<\/a> on the scorecards in the headliner of the night.<\/p>\n

Former interim UFC middleweight champ, who would go on to secure two reigns with the legendary strap, Israel Adesanya, recently weighed in on the bout that saw Gaethje emerge with the strap once again. This comparison point with Griffin vs. Bonnar was expressed by the standout middleweight combatant on his YouTube channel recently, as Adesanya said [via MMA Junkie<\/a>],<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main event was sick. This is perfect because the Spike TV deal, Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar showed out and made the whole world go, \u2018What the f**k.\u2019 This is like part 2 I guess because it\u2019s the new deal with Paramount, and then the main event f**king showed out. I\u2019m sure everyone watched this. A lot of eyes on this, and the main event delivered, which is what you want.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Israel Adesanya is not optimistic on 185-pound class ahead of UFC Seattle comeback<\/p>\n

Israel Adesanya returns at UFC Seattle toward the end of March to clash with surging contender Joe Pyfer<\/a>, but the former kingpin of middleweight does not seem to be terribly enthused by the broader state of 185 pounds in the UFC. This was expressed during a recent interview that the former kickboxing standout gave on The Ariel Helwani Show prior to the UFC\u2019s schedule kicking off for the calendar year, as Adesanya stated [via BJPenn.com],<\/p>\n

\u201cThe middleweight division right now isn\u2019t really the same as when I was in the game. What was the last exciting thing at middleweight? Exciting, and people were talking about it \u2013 it\u2019s good they have Khamzat as champion, that was probably the last exciting thing, becoming champion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo UFC for six weeks\u2026for me, it just doesn\u2019t feel the same as when I was around. I gave people someone to love; I gave some people someone to hate. Gave them something to feel, whether they loved me or hated me. Right now it just feels bland. Other divisions are way more exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel Adesanya recently likened the Paddy Pimblett vs. Justin Gaethje fight to the paradigm shift-enacting fight between Stephan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,43061,9577,638,15502,82,640,153471],"class_list":["post-435445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-israel-adesanya","tag-justin-gaethje","tag-mma","tag-paddy-pimblett","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-324"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}