Israel Adesanya has lost four fights in a row, and the most recent one looked the least like him. That should bother him more than any name on the schedule. Against Joe Pyfer at UFC Seattle in March, the most patient striker of his generation spent long stretches trading in a phone booth, and he got stopped in Round 2 for it.
Now Ariel Helwani reports Adesanya is expected to headline UFC Saudi Arabia on Dec. 5 against Sharabutdin “Shara Bullet” Magomedov. The UFC hasn’t officially announced it. Athlon’s breakdown, which ran on Yahoo Sports, made the case that Adesanya snaps the skid here, and it also argued that if he can’t beat a fighter who is blind in one eye, he should retire as soon as possible. That’s a brutal line. It’s also hard to wave away for a 37-year-old whose streak includes three stoppage losses.
My take is simple. This fight is winnable, and the plan for winning it already exists on tape. Michael Page drew it up. Adesanya just has to be disciplined enough to follow it.
1. Go Back to Distance and Stay There
According to the UFC’s official numbers cited by Athlon, 92% of Adesanya’s significant strike output comes from distance. He’s tied with Anderson Silva for the most knockdowns in middleweight history with 13. That’s who he is. Two title reigns were built out at the end of his reach, with opponents lunging into counters they never saw.
The Pyfer fight was the opposite. Athlon pointed out he was far more willing to get into extended, chaotic exchanges than he usually is, and Pyfer was the less accomplished fighter. Shara has 12 of his 17 wins by knockout. A brawl is exactly the deal Shara wants to offer, and Adesanya needs to decline it every single time it’s on the table, even when the crowd starts booing.
2. Steal Michael Page’s Homework
Shara is 17-1 overall and 6-1 in the UFC. The lone loss came against Page, who has since been released by the UFC, which is a funny little footnote for the only man who solved him. Page beat him with in-and-out movement and blitzing counters, and per Athlon, he caught Shara every time Shara tried to close distance and throw something big.
That is an Israel Adesanya fight with a different name on it. Athlon noted Adesanya has historically feasted on opponents who overcommit, and Shara’s whole highlight-reel style is built on overcommitting. So let him come forward. Give him the space he wants to cross, then make crossing it the most painful thing he does all night.
3. Respect the Weird Angles
This is where countering a guy like Shara gets dangerous. He finished Armen Petrosyan with a spinning backfist, and even Athlon’s pro-Adesanya breakdown admitted Shara could catch him with a powerful shot from an unorthodox angle. Counter-striking works until you read the wrong thing, and spinning attacks punish lazy reads.
The adjustment is about exits. Land, and leave on an angle. Don’t stand in front of him admiring the counter. The sources don’t say which eye Shara can’t see out of, so I’m not going to guess here, but Adesanya’s new camp has the film, and his footwork should be built around that answer from the first day of camp.
4. Make the New Corner Actually Mean Something
After Pyfer, Adesanya split with longtime coach Eugene Bareman and City Kickboxing. That partnership produced both of his title reigns, though Athlon described it as having grown stale. Adesanya has talked about needing a fresh perspective, and opponents have years of film on the City Kickboxing version of him. New voices could give Shara looks nobody has seen.
That only matters if it shows up in the cage. A new coaching setup that lets him brawl is the same loss with a different cornerman holding the stool.
His mindset is clearly there. After the Pyfer defeat, he said, “I will keep going again and again and again and again. I’m not leaving. You can’t stop me.” On the Mighty Cast with Demetrious Johnson, he added, “I don’t want this to be the writing of my story, because I feel like, yes, I took part in this, but this is not what I wanted to write.”
I love the fire. My worry is that desperation is how a counter-puncher ends up slugging it out with Joe Pyfer. Desperate fighters chase. Adesanya wins this fight by making Shara chase him.
If the UFC makes it official, Dec. 5 tells us which version showed up to camp. Pyfer got the brawler. Shara needs to get the guy who used to make middleweights miss and pay, or the retirement calls get a lot louder.
