Is Israel Adesanya officially on the decline? The two-time middleweight champion failed to win back his title against Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 305. What was even more shocking was that he lost via submission for the first time in his career in Perth. Adesanya dominated most of the fight but failed to push past the final hurdle. However, his longtime coach, Eugene Bareman, gave a harsh reality check to the former champion for his loss.
After the fight ‘The Last Stylebender’ in his post-fight press conference, said, “I tried to fight the top hand, and I don’t know what mistake I made because I tried to turn into him, but then he got on my back because I was using the fence maybe? Is this exactly the reason? Coach Bareman doesn’t quite feel so.
It was pointed out on social media and by the UFC 305 broadcast team that scoring the bout would be tough for the judges. The scorecard at the time of the stoppage was really close, with Du Plessis 29-28 from two judges while the third official scoring 29-28 in favor of Adesanya. Nevertheless, ‘Stylebender’ wasn’t quite impressed with his performance and, after the fight, seemed very dejected. The UFC official page shared a video on their Instagram where coach Bareman shared what the former champion felt after the loss.
He said, “He feels that fight. Like he does not like what happened in that fight. It gets to him. It annoys him that he wasn’t able to perform in the way that he envisioned.” Israel Adesanya definitely felt that the fight was going in his favor until a barrage of punches late in the fourth round from ‘Stillknocks’ led to the fight ending sequence. However, it seems that ‘The Last Stylebender’ is yet to take responsibility for his loss and is finding ways to blame his opponent.
During the video, his coach further added, “In his head, he’s justified a lot of that by blaming the opponent, and rightfully so. But it’s not just the opponent’s fault. And although I’m willing to say it to you, I don’t think for that to come out of his mouth, I don’t know if you’ll get that out of his mouth. You won’t get him to admit that. But in his head, he knows. He knows you can’t put all of the blame on the opponent.” Despite Bareman saying that Adesanya did point out his ‘mistake’ after the fight.
“I knew it was going to be tough. I was cracking him. I was quite strong in there. I felt able to resist his takedowns. I just make a stupid, dumb mistake on the ground,” Adesanya had said back then. Indeed, it was a neck-to-neck battle where the two fighters were started pushing each other from the very beginning.
Du Plessis found some success in strategically mixing up leg kicks with blitzes. On the other hand, Adesanya also created scoring opportunities with his strikes from range. Du Plessis brought in his wrestling skills in the second round. He managed an early takedown in the round and went back to that, despite Adesanya managing to stand up. A few submission attempts made it a strong round for Du Plessis.
But Adesanya pulled off a good fight in the third round. It saw him increasing his work to the body. Du Plessis looked exhausted as he did not go back to his wrestling, but pulled off some solid moments with his striking. This continued until the fight reached the championship rounds. Adesanya turned the fight back in his favor, but Du Plessis got back to the grappling in round 4.
Du Plessis managed a takedown off of a right hand that he transitioned right into the rear-naked choke or a neck-crank variation and finished the fight. “I have to watch it again because I don’t think I was rocked. I think I slipped and I was like, ‘What the f*** was that?’ and then he was trying to catch me as I was exiting,” Adesanya had said at the post-fight press conference.
Referring to a moment when Adesanya appeared to trip, just before Du Plessis delivered the trio of right hands that started the ending of the battle, Adesnya further added, “I can’t remember how he took me down, because everything in there is always a blur. It’s still fresh, it just happened 20, 30 minutes ago. He switched to a Gable grip, and then I wasn’t able to separate the hands like I wanted to. I have to watch it properly to really see what happened.”
With this defeat, Adesanya got on to the first two-fight losing streak of his career. He hasn’t earned a victory since April 2023. He also went 1-3 in his past four fights since November 2022. However, after the fight, Adesanya had said that he was proud of his performance and the improvement he showed after the loss to Sean Strickland, which he tagged “atrocious,” that cost him the UFC middleweight title. In fact Bareman had also indicated the same.
“The Strickland loss, he’ll never get over. You just fought badly, and it was unexplainable. It’s intangible. It’s not measurable what caused it. You just go down a rabbit hole of a million things. But the Dricus fight, he was doing well. It was a great contest, and he got outmaneuvered. He got outdone. You can figure out exactly what happened, follow the path, figure out went wrong, and it’s very traceable,” the coach had explained. Notably, Adesanya had removed his gloves after the loss which fueled speculations of his retirement.
However, Adesanya blasted that later on. “I’m not f***ing leaving until I want to leave,” he had said. Still, since losing the fight, many experts have shared their opinions on the future of Israel Adesanya, with some even labeling him as finished. However, his opponents do not look to be on the same.
Former opponent impressed with ‘best version’ of Israel Adesanya at UFC 305
Robert Whittaker, who fought him in UFC 271 in 2022 and lost via decision, had a completely different take on the fight. ‘The Reaper’ claimed that he saw the best version of Adesanya at UFC 305.
Whittaker, who is scheduled to feature at UFC 308 against Khamzat Chimaev, took a special interest in the middleweight clash, which happened at UFC 305. ‘The Reaper’ was highly impressed with Dricus Du Plessis and the way he made a change in his game plan. However, Whittaker made it clear that Adesanya, despite losing the fight, did most of the things right. During a conversation with Submission Radio, Whittaker broke down the fight for the fans and pointed out the only mistake Adesanya made that night.
He said, “Yeah I thought Adesanya looked spectacular. This is probably the best version we saw of him. He was very effective he looked in his groove he was landing big shots. But man DDP is one of those guys that honestly if you don’t k— him, he’s going to win the fight.”
Adesanya, after his fight during his post-fight interview inside the Octagon, made it clear that he would come back and that he was far from calling it a day. His coach also hinted that ‘The Last Stylenbender’ is hoping to fight again in 2024 and is hungry to win back the belt. Notably, Du Plessis had also hailed Adesanya after the loss.
“To share this octagon with a legend, a 100 per cent hall of fame. This man has done so much for this sport. I’m sorry that it came across that I disrespected him. To share this cage with a legend like that, I have the utmost respect for him, warrior to warrior,” Du Pleassis had said. Adesanya held the middleweight belt from 2019 to 2022, recording 5successful defences before dropping the gold to his kickboxing rival, Alex Pereira. Adesanya avenged that TKO defeat with a knockout of Pereira in April 2023, before losing the belt to Strickland. Looking at that Daniel Cormier had said that the loss to Du Plessis left Adesanya in a “tricky” spot.
“That’s a tricky thing for Adesanya, because now he’s got to go and fight fights that would seem to mean less than anything he has done for a really, really long time. You know he had fought 12 straight title fights. He has now lost two title fights in a row – one to Strickland, one to Du Plessis. How long will it take him to earn his way back to another championship opportunity?” Cormier had said.
Currently, the middleweight division is on fire with some top-class fighters like Whittaker, Khamzat Chimaev, and Alex Pereira featured in it. Only if Adesanya returns later this year will it be interesting to see who he fights next. Let us know your picks in the comments below.
