Israel Adesanya is one of the greatest UFC middleweights of all time and is a future hall of famer. He was 11-0 in his professional MMA career when he joined the UFC. He racked up 5 wins to get a chance to fight for the Middleweight interim championship belt against Kelvin Gastelum and he won in a fight of the night performance. He then faced Robert Whittaker for the undisputed middleweight championship belt and finished Whittaker in the second round. After becoming the UFC middleweight champion, he defended his belt 5 times and cleared out the whole division.
However, this past weekend he fell short against his former kickboxing foe Alex Pereira. Alex Pereira who already beat Adesanya twice in kickboxing transitioned to MMA and beat Adesanya in MMA making this his third overall win over Adesanya who is now the former champion. In the fight that took place this past weekend, Adesanya was up 3 rounds to 1 but in the fifth and final round, he was TKO if he would’ve made it through the last round he will still be the champion. When I see such dominant champions lose it fears me to think that this might be the end of their era. Time after time we see when champions lose, they go on this downward spiral and I hope this is not the case. As a fan of Israel Adesanya, I hope he gets his rematch and becomes the champion again. I would not want this era to end. I believe his key to success is ether capitalize on the wrestling or always keep Pereira on his back foot. If he cannot regain the middleweight championship belt in the rematch than I believe his time might be up and the “The Last Stylebender” era will become finished.
BIASMMA 