‘The Last Stylebender’ is feeling pretty philosophical about his career following three losses in a row.
Israel Adesanya has shifted his mindset away from fighting for the title.
Adesanya spent nearly six years at the top of the sport, either fighting for a belt or defending his title. That ended after his loss to Dricus Du Plessis in August 2024 — his next fight would be a non-title affair against Nassourdine Imavov … one he’d lose via second round TKO.
Where does Izzy go from here? It’s not exactly clear to anyone, not even Adesanya himself. He talked about the shift in mindset during an extensive Q&A on his YouTube channel.
“Do I have a title shot in mind for the future? No,” he said. “I’ll say this, when I got to the UFC, I never chased the belt. I expected it. I expected to be champion, I expected to get to this point that I wanted to get to because of the work I put in and the mindset, the belief, I knew with everything I did, I was going to get to it.”
“After the DDP fight I remember thinking, ‘Oh well. Cool, It’ll come around, I don’t have to chase it, because I expect it. I just know. It will.’ But after this fight [with Imavov] I’m just like, ‘You know what? I’m not expecting anything. I’m not expecting to be the champion again.’”
“Like I said, if what I’ve done in this game doesn’t make me happy already, then what will?” Adesanya concluded. “So I’m not expecting it. If it comes, I’ll take it with both hands. Both hands! But I’m not expecting it, I’m kinda just chilling and living and training, doing well. And yeah, when it happens or if it happens, it happens. But I’m just not expecting it.”
Adesanya is 35 and has a lot of mileage — a 24-5 record in MMA, 6-1 record in boxing, plus the fights that made it onto his official 75-5 kickboxing and Muay Thai record. Who knows how many more didn’t? That’s well over a hundred bouts in 15 years. It’s inevitable that the sun would start to set on the reign of “The Last Stylebender.” Could there be one last glimmer left before dark? We wouldn’t put it past Izzy to pull something off.