Israel Adesanya renews hostilities with Robert Whittaker at UFC 271 this weekend and the middleweight champion looks in the shape of his life.
The met in Melbourne for the undisputed crown in October 2019, which The Last Stylebender came away victorious from.
Now, two-and-a-half years on, the pair meet again with the 185lb championship at stake, but due to COVID, it will be in Houston, Texas, not Down Under.
Adesanya has clearly been training hard for battle at UFC 271 and in an image shared on Instagram, the 32-year-old looks better than ever.
Even the heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou was impressed, replying to the post with a series of fire emojis. Wayne Rooney also liked it.
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The Nigerian-born-Kiwi has deliberately got himself into the best shape of his career in response to what he calls a ‘lacklustre’ 2021.
“I want to get three [fights] this year,” Adesanya said.
“I’m not happy. Last year was my, to be honest, most lacklustre year in my UFC career, I feel.
“It was just two fights. I went up to light heavyweight, failed that side of the mission, and I defended my belt at middleweight, and there’s a point in that [Vettori] fight I got bored. My [striking] coach ‘Twista’ was like, ‘Don’t get bored, Izzy. Stay in it.’
“I remember he said that and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, true.’ He could notice. I don’t know what he saw, but he just noticed I switched off. I was just like, ‘Meh, this isn’t fun anymore.’
“Because the guy wasn’t trying to win, he was trying to survive. I was like, 'I’m the one with the belt, you’re being super defensive', so yeah.”
In Whittaker, Adesanya has one of the toughest mandates in the UFC’s middleweight division. The challenger is 20-5, but he has only lost once in his last 14 outings and that defeat came against Adesanya. His last three wins have come against high-level opponents in Darren Till, Jared Cannonier and Kelvin Gastelum.
But when they get inside the octagon, Adesanya, 21-1, is confident he will break Whittaker’s spirit once more.
“When he finds out he can’t grapple with me,” he continued. “When he can’t outgrapple me. I want him to scramble with me. I really want to see. He’s a good scrambler.
"Even with the [Yoel] Romero fight, there’s certain positions in there where he was able to scramble. But man, you guys don’t understand. When I was young, I was the guy (who people said) ‘He’s got it. This guy’s gonna be great. And I always knew that about myself.”
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