Clinching the undisputed middleweight title just last weekend, recently minted champion, Israel Adesanya is being lined up for a quickfire Octagon comeback, with head coach, Eugene Bareman touting a potential eight-week timeframe for his return.
Adesanya, now a two-time undisputed middleweight champion under the banner of the UFC, headlined the promotion’s UFC 287 flagship event last weekend, stopping Brazilian rival, Alex Pereira with a stunning second round KO at the Octagon fence.
The victory propelled Israel Adesanya back to the winner’s enclosure after he suffered a fifth round standing TKO loss to Pereira in the main event of UFC 281 back in November, dropping his undisputed middleweight crown.
Israel Adesanya linked with a move to the light heavyweight division
Linked with a potential return to the Octagon in the form of a light heavyweight move and title fight against current undisputed champion, Jamahal Hill by the above-mentioned, Bareman, the City Kickboxing leader suggested Adesanya will be ready to compete as soon as June – eyeing a quickfire return.
“What it does is it provides weird opportunities,” Eugene Bareman told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour. “Because, as you know, the sport must move on, the division must move on, we have to fight someone. So it will provide some weird opportunity for someone that people are least expecting to get a title shot, to get a title shot.”
“That’s where these guys who haven’t fought Israel (Adesanya), there’s an opportunity there if they jump on it. And how you jump on it is you win the fights that you need to win,” Bareman explained. “But there’s also other means, you know? Like you create a bit of a storm, in social media and in the media. There’s an opportunity there for someone to grab, they just have to do it. We wanna fight straight away. We’ll fight in eight weeks. There’s an opportunity there, someone needs to grab it.” (Transcribed by MMANews)
As well as a potential title excursion of his own against Hill, Israel Adesanya has been linked with fights against Sean Strickland, and most notably – what appears to be a tense rivalry with South African finisher, Dricus du Plessis.