Following his shock KO loss against Nassourdine Imavov this past weekend at UFC Saudi Arabia, Israel Adesanya’s time at the top of the middleweight division may be over.
After coming up short against Dricus Du Plessis in their huge grudge match at UFC 305, Israel Adesanya was booked to take on soaring contender, Nassourdine Imavov at UFC Saudi Arabia.
The former middleweight king was shockingly knocked out in the second round of their main event and following that, there were calls for him to retire after suffering his third loss in a row.
Despite that, Adesanya claimed that he will be back but will likely take an extended amount of time away from fighting and it is unclear whether he will once again attempt to climb back to the top of the division.
Dricus Du Plessis writes off Israel Adesanya following recent KO loss
At UFC 312 this coming weekend, Du Plessis defends his 185lb title against Sean Strickland in the main event in a heated rematch.
Adesanya has a long history with both fighters and surprisingly following his recent KO loss, he was given some words of support by Strickland, who claimed Adesanya has already proved his lasting legacy in the sport.
Despite that, Du Plessis has commented on Adesanya’s recent friendship with Robert Whittaker stating that the reason they are now training together is because Adesanya won’t make another run towards the top.
“I’m not training with anyone in the top 10. Lucky for me, I just think for Rob and Izzy it’s a different dynamic, right now they now trajectory wise, they’ll never fight each other again,” the champion said at the UFC 312 media day.
“Rob can, at his age, he can make another run for it, I think he has another run left in him 100%. For Izzy, I don’t think there’s another title run, with all due respect, I think his legacy is cemented and will always be there, whatever he feels like doing, he can do,” he continued.
Du Plessis compares Adesanya’s position to Anderson Silva’s towards career end
‘Stillknocks’ gave Adesanya a lot of respect with his comment and went on to admit that he believes he is in the same category as consensus middleweight GOAT, Anderson Silva.
Towards the end of Silva’s historic UFC career, he arguably continued fighting for longer than he should have and after losing the title, lost seven fights out of eight.
“I put him in the same category as Anderson Silva at this stage of, lose as many fights as you want, you’ll always have your legacy. Anderson Silva after his reign ended, I don’t care how many times he lost, he was still my GOAT… I feel Izzy is in that area, take stupid fights here and there if you still have the passion.”