Israel Adesanya says walking away from City Kickboxing was the best thing he could have done for his career, and he’s backing it up with the kind of hype you usually only hear from a guy who hasn’t lost four in a row.
“Training camp’s been awesome,” Adesanya said in a training camp vlog, as reported by MMA Fighting. He admitted that every fighter claims their current camp is their best ever, then said it anyway: with the CKB split behind him and a team built around his own preparation, “this is the best I’ve felt in a very long time. For real.”
He went further, calling it the most enjoyable camp he’s had since around the time of his Alex Pereira rivalry. “This is the most fun training camp I’ve had in years,” he said, adding, “I’ve been in fight week shape for weeks, my regular fight week shape.”
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How We Got Here
The last time Adesanya had his hand raised was more than three years ago, when he knocked out Pereira to win back the UFC middleweight title. That second reign ended in his first defense, when Sean Strickland pulled off the upset. Then came three straight stoppage losses: Dricus du Plessis, Nassourdine Imavov and Joe Pyfer.
In July, Adesanya parted ways with City Kickboxing in New Zealand, his home gym since 2009. That’s the room that has produced UFC champions Alexander Volkanovski and Carlos Ulberg, former champ Robert Whittaker, and contenders like Dan Hooker and Kai Kara-France. At the time, Adesanya described the breakup as bittersweet and never explained it. He still hasn’t spelled it out, but the new vlog gets a lot closer.
He started with himself. Adesanya said he’d been doing a lot of thinking, and he was blunt about his own part in it.
“I could have been a better teammate in certain aspects.”
He also admitted he sometimes leaned on the team as cover and let his worst impulses run the show.
“I hid behind them sometimes and just let the idiot take over.”
Then he pointed the finger outward. Adesanya said he couldn’t vouch for other people’s self-awareness and floated the idea of someone owning their mistakes as a coach. His message for whoever was listening was short.
“Look in the f*cking mirror and just know what you did and be better.”
He also addressed the critics who say success went to his head, quoting their line back at them.
“He got too big for his boots.”
His answer to that was a two-word dismissal you can probably guess.
His next fight is rumored to be against Shara Bullet at UFC Saudi Arabia on Dec. 5. Nothing has been officially confirmed in the source reporting.
Quick Take
I love this version of Izzy. Owning your own garbage and then lobbing a grenade at your old coaches in the same breath is peak Stylebender, and the guy has always fought better when he’s got something to prove and someone to prove it to. But claiming the best camp of your life is the most famous set of last words in combat sports, and four straight losses, three of them finishes, don’t get erased by a fun vlog. If he walks into Saudi Arabia on Dec. 5 and actually looks like the guy who flattened Pereira, every word of this aged perfectly. If he gets stopped again, the CKB guys don’t have to say a thing.
