Israel Adesanya has only been out of the octagon slight more than 11 months ahead of UFC 305, but for him, it has felt like an eternity.
After spending more than 13 years competing at a near-unfathomable pace between kickboxing, boxing and MMA, Adesanya (24-3 MMA, 13-3 UFC) finally made a conscious decision to step away after losing the middleweight title to Sean Strickland in a stunning upset at UFC 293 in September 2023.
The hiatus has been beneficial for Adesanya. He has gone through his process, and while in the shadows has upgraded his mental and especially physical game to turn himself into “a weapon.”
Adesanya’s passion has seemingly been re-stoked as he enters his Aug. 17 headliner with Dricus Du Plessis (21-2 MMA, 7-0 UFC), which takes place at RAC Arena in Perth, Australia (ESPN+ pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+). He is champing at the bit to fight, and the only thing he doesn’t enjoy is the wait and all the promotional requirements before he can finally set foot back in the octagon.
“I missed it – I definitely missed it,” Adesanya told MMA Junkie. “I f*cking missed it. I missed this sh*t. That’s really all I care about. Everything else is stupid. This is silly. The fight’s already sold but we have to go on this media sh*t. We have to do another press conference. I guess that’s to hype the fight up even more. Then the faceoff. Then the weigh-ins, then the faceoff. It’s like, it’s all f*cking stupid to me. I want to go in there and beat this c*nt up. So that’s the exciting thing for me, and I’m going to do that. But again, it’s just patience. And I’m a patient motherf*cker.”
Adesanya has exacted patience in waiting for his time to return. He said he accepted an offer to face Du Plessis, who took the 185-pound belt off Strickland at UFC 297 in January, at the highly-anticipated UFC 300 event in April. It didn’t materialize, but it only provided more time for Adesanya to refine himself.
When Adesanya got the green light from his medical team to jump back in the fold, he declared ready to end his longest break from competition since making his combat sports debut in April 2010.
“(I knew it was time to come back) when I was healed from my injuries that I was nursing,” Adesanya said. “Once those things were all cleared by the doctors and I could train again – I gradually got back to the game.”
If Adesanya’s motivation around a return ever even slightly wavered, it seems Du Plessis a fitting foe to bring him back into the fold. The pair have carved out a history in recent years, with Du Plessis’ comments around being the UFC’s first champion who lives and fights out of an African country being the genesis of some conflicting feelings.
Adesanya and Du Plessis had a heated in-cage faceoff at UFC 290 in July 2023, and the intensity was palpable as they shared in the same oxygen at an on-sale press conference for their UFC 305 fight back in July, which was followed by a lengthy faceoff.
Although Adesanya, No. 3 in the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie middleweight rankings, is hardly trying to go out of his way to be nice to No. 1-ranked Du Plessis, he admits there’s no true hatred. Just disdain about those initial comments, which he plans to make the current champ “take accountability for” when the cage door locks behind them.
Above all, however, Adesanya said this fight is most important for himself. He doesn’t think the loss to Strickland was a fair representation of himself, but at 35, outsiders are going to question if Adesanya’s best days are in his past. He certainly doesn’t care if anyone else thinks that, but he needs to find out for himself.
“At the moment what is fuelling me is pretty much just showing myself off,” Adesanya said. “I am an entertaining. I am a performer. I am a guy that goes in and gets the job done. When I don’t do that, it irks me. The last outing for me wasn’t really me, so I just want to go off, go out and show who I am. Not really to anyone. Just prove to myself that I am still that dude. And I know that I am. I trust me.”
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