Israel Adesanya Focused On Showing Up, Showing Out

Once he unified the titles, he asked to face the boogeyman of the division, Yoel Romero, in his first defense, and after emerging with his perfect record intact, he backed up his promise to make it look easy against Paulo Costa by doing precisely that.

“I want my legacy to be the guy that fought everyone in his way and when they weren’t in my way, I went out of my way to fight some people, just so I could prove I’m the best,” said Adesanya. “When it’s all said and done, people can be like, ‘It’s a wrap. He’s the one. He’s the (greatest of all-time). You weren’t around in ‘The Stylebender Era,’ when he was calling out Romero when he ain’t have to, when he was dismantling people early in his career, when he jumped up to light heavyweight and f***** up Jan Blachowicz.’”

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While pound-for-pound debates and arguments about who is “The G.O.A.T.” are always subjective and often more difficult than we want to allow, there is no denying that moving to 21-0 and holding both the middleweight and light heavyweight titles would put Adesanya on a very short list of the top talents of his generation.

And although more than a few eras in this sport have been far shorter lived than many anticipated, the potential for Adesanya to continue his three-years-and-counting run of unbridled success is there.

Precision Over Power

The promotional trailer for Saturday’s main event features the newly minted light heavyweight champion referencing his “legendary Polish power,” and for good reason.

Entering Saturday night’s contest, Blachowicz has won four straight, and three of those victories — including his title-winning turn at UFC 253 last fall, on the same night Adesanya dispatched Costa — have come by stoppage when the 38-year-old veteran from Cieszyn and fighting out of Warsaw detonated a thunderous hook on the chin of his opponents.

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During his rise at middleweight, countless opponents suggested Adesanya was too skinny, too wiry, not strong enough to contend with the power brandished by the top talents in the 185-pound ranks and reach the top of the division, and now that he’s moving 20 pounds north to challenge Blachowicz, those same questions are being asked again, and the middleweight champion is exhausted by it all.

Thus far, through nine trips into the Octagon and 20 consecutive mixed martial arts appearances, Adesanya has ended every foray into the fighting theater standing triumphant in the center of the cage when the dust settles and the smoke clears.

And for the middleweight champion looking to make more history on Saturday night in Las Vegas, it all goes back to expressing himself to the fullest and his only expectation being to do his best when the Octagon door closes and it’s time to work.

“A lot of these guys are actors,” he said, referring to former opponents that had plenty to say in the build to their encounters, but offered little once it was time to follow through. “I said it — ‘theatrics.’ I feel people, I feel their energy and I know when you’re not about this life.

“Jan is definitely about that life,” he added. “He doesn’t have any games that he wants to play He wants the smoke, (but for a lot of people), it’s not real: you’re putting on a show and doing what you think you’re supposed do, rather than being authentically yourself, which is where I come in because I’m authentically myself.

“And when I’m authentically expressing myself, no one can f*** with me.”

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