Israel Adesanya has verbally agreed to move up a weight class and face the UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, Jan Blachowicz. The two management teams are currently undergoing negotiations, and a date is yet to be set.
Adesanya is the Middleweight Champion of the UFC, with an undefeated MMA record of 20 wins and 0 losses. He has accumulated 100 fights in his combat sports career, and is known as one of the best strikers in the world. However, he did have a small handful of losses in his long and successful Kickboxing career.
Speaking with Submission Radio, Eugene Bareman, who is Adesanya’s head coach, discussed at length the commonality that Israel’s opponents had, who hold a win over him.
“If you look at his record, you can count on one hand the number of times he’s lost.” Eugene said.
“There’s one common thing among all these opponents that managed to get a win over Israel. They were all bigger than him. And that’s the challenge, that’s the challenge we’re facing. It’s more than just being bigger, it’s a lifetime of fighting people you have a height and reach advantage over. And then all of the suddden, you don’t have those same advantages. It’s overcoming that.”
“That’s the key to this fight, that’s going to be the challenge. That’s what makes it interesting for Israel. That’s what makes it interesting for me and my coaching team. We’re jumping into a place where we haven’t been particularly successful. And we’re looking to turn that around and we’re looking to prove, not to anybody else, but to ourselves, that we can overcome the challenge.”
Blachowicz is looking to book the fight for March, but Adesanya is angling for a sooner date. Also waiting in the wings is number one LHW contender, Glover Teixeira.
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