By “Immortal” decree, all fans should make room in the Top 5 of their greatest of all time (GOAT) lists for reigning UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya.
“The Last Stylebender” reclaimed his 185-pound crown by stopping longtime kickboxing rival Alex Pereira in the UFC 287 pay-per-view (PPV) main event last weekend in Miami, a victory good enough to place him atop the promotion’s Mount Olympus.
That’s according to UFC welterweight smasher Matt Brown.
“I felt like this fight he just threw that out the window and said ‘I’m not wrestling you, we’re doing a kickboxing match and I’m f****** you up,’” Brown told MMA Fighting. “I commend him for that. That took balls for him to do that. That took courage. That took bravery. That took all the things that qualify a champion like Adesanya and I think you’ve got to start putting him in the top five GOAT list now. It’s not like I’m basing this off one fight. Look at the guys he’s beat before. He’s got a f****** resume. He’s just spectacular. It’s f****** amazing what he’s doing. I’ll just leave it at that.”
The 33 year-old Adesanya (24-2) is 4-1 across his last five middleweight title fights but his knockout of “Poatan” stands as the only finish during that span. Prior to that run, “The Last Stylebender” was outmuscled en route to a decision loss against then-light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz.
“If we want to compare with other GOATs that we always talk about, GSP had a very unexciting career as a champion,” Brown continued. “We simply put him up there for his wins, his amount of wins and not losing rounds. This fight just hit me a different way. Maybe I’m a little bit biased right now because it just happened this weekend and still a little bit high from it. It definitely gave me a buzz watching that and Adesanya just the way he did it, I think that’s an extremely special person to be able to do that.”
St-Pierre (26-2), a former two-division champion, retired from UFC in late 2017.