Adesanya is looking to return sooner than many expected, although his current rehab schedule doesn’t make a UFC 300 fight look very likely.
Things are starting to heat up regarding an Israel Adesanya comeback. But first “The Last Stylebender” will have to rehab a mysterious injury before getting back to full-time training.
In a new interview with Combat TV, Adesanya seemed briefly annoyed when the subject of “injury problems” came up.
“Yeah, we’re good, we’re good,” he interrupted before anything more could be revealed. “The difference is, a lot of people, when they get hurt in the game, they like to ‘Ah, I got this injury and it’ll take this long to recover and whatnot.’ I’m like ‘Why are you telling them?’ A smart coach who knows that injury exists will try and use it against you. I never like to let the enemy know what’s my next move.”
“But so far I’m recovering very well and I’m on track.”
It’s unclear what injury Adesanya could be referring to. He put a lot of mileage on his body over the past two years and implied when he announced his hiatus from competition that he had things to take care of. Was he referring to serious injuries? Or has he finally gotten treatment for nagging problems that have accumulated over the years?
Earlier this week, Jon Jones announced he’d had surgery to remove bone spurs from his elbow. These are the kind of annoying maintenance operations fighters sometimes push off that Izzy could be going through.
He did let Combat TV know that he was aiming to be back in the gym training hard by end of February. That doesn’t bode well for fans hoping he’d top UFC 300 on April 13th.
“When I come back into the gym and start training full-time, I’m in a new space with a new energy,” Adesanya said. “Probably end of next month, maybe. With the way I heal my body I don’t think it’ll take that long, but yeah, end of next month I’m probably thinking. I’m going to do rehab now … and yeah, things are trucking along quite nicely, tracking along quite nicely.”
When Adesanya said he planned to take some time off, there were serious questions as to whether we’d see him compete in 2024 at all. Four months later, and “The Last Stylebender” sounds fully re-engaged with the sport and excited to share what’s coming up.
“2024 holds, in the game, a lot of things for me,” he said. “A lot of unanswered questions for myself that I look to answer this year. I swear to God, I want to say more but I don’t, cuz I’m keeping it to myself. But like I said, changes have been made, and I feel those changes and I’m like ‘Right, now let’s see what training and fighting is like with these changes.’”
The next stop for Adesanya is UFC 297 in Toronto, Canada, where he’ll be cageside to watch Sean Strickland and Dricus Du Plessis fight for the middleweight title. Will Izzy step into the cage after that fight to challenge the winner? At this point we’d be a little shocked if he didn’t.