Former two-time UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya isn’t fazed about competing at a more low-key event to kick off his 2025 campaign.
Having risen to prominence on MMA’s biggest stage in quick time, “The Last Stylebender” competed on pay-per-view lineups 14 times in a row between his knockout win over Derek Brunson at UFC 230 in 2018 and submission loss to Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 305 in Australia this past August.
That setback this year marked Adesanya’s second straight, coming 11 months on from his shock removal from the throne at the hands of Sean Strickland. The Nigerian-New Zealander now finds him out of the championship conversation for the first time in years.
And with that will come a return to UFC Fight Night action for the first time since his headliner with Brad Tavares in 2018, as he does battle with the surging Nassourdine Imavov at the event in Saudi Arabia on Feb. 1.
Given that card’s location and the habit since 2020 for many events to take place within the crowdless surroundings of the Apex, Adesanya isn’t expecting the magnitude of his next fight to feel as different as some have predicted.
“I still get paid. There’s still a referee, it’s two of us in there, there’s a crowd. It’s not like in the f*cking Apex or something, so it doesn’t feel any different,” Adesanya said during an interview uploaded to his FREESTYLEBENDER YouTube channel. “I think people are making it out to be something how they would react to it, but they’re not in my shoes. They’re not in my shorts.
“It’s a Saudi Arabia Fight Night, first of all. I still get paid. It still feels like you’re fighting Israel Adesanya. This is the biggest fight of his (Imavov’s) life. I have to be the one to halt that,” Adesanya continued. “It still feels the same. It doesn’t feel any different.”
While he expects to feel the same making the walk, Adesanya will hope to get a different result than in his two previous outings.
Having admitted that he’s toward the end of his career as an active fighter, “The Last Stylebender” will look to ensure that his stint in the UFC doesn’t conclude on a losing skid by defeating Imavov for his first win since a memorable knockout of Alex Pereira in April 2023.