The future of former UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya’s battle was seen floating in the air as he suffered a knockout loss to Nasoldin Imavov in UFC Saudi Arabia. However, Adesanya’s head coach provided a positive update.
“The Last Style Bender” has lost three straights and four of five and has not made any official decisions about continuing to compete in the octagon or calling it a career. Adesanya attended UFC 314 and saw teammate Alexander Volkanovski regain his featherweight title in the main event, while City Kickboxing head coach Eugene Bareman discussed a brief chat with Adesanya in Miami.
“One of the brief conversations he had with me in the locker room at Volkanovski, said, ‘Look, man, I think I’m going to fight again,'” Bareman told Submission Radio. “So those are the conversations we have. “Yeah, I want to fight again. I want to fight again. I think I’m ready to fight again.” …
“It’s like having a conversation about whether he should fight again or whether he thinks he should, or if he feels he wants, or if he wants, or if he has hunger. That’s the conversation we have. No, you have to bring it back to the level.”
After an impressive six title defense, Adesanya lost the middleweight title to Alex Pereira via TKO in UFC 281 in November 2022, winning in 2023 knockouts of MMA Fighting at UFC 287 five months later.
Since then, Adesanya has suffered a biased decision loss to Sean Strickland and a pair of suspension losses to Doricus du Plessis and Imavov.
It is clear that Adesanya can still win in the octagon, but Berman sees his student as more. The question is whether Adesanya wants to climb it again.
“I’m patient, I mean, Izzy does cool,” Berman explained. “Izzy did everything necessary in sports. Both know they have firsthand experiences of how hard the man is working.
“When you work that way, I don’t know everyone’s camp and everyone’s work ethics, but that’s the most difficult worker in sports. Age doesn’t matter, he’s not a peer. That’s where he has to go.