Israel Adesanya has claimed that his year-long absence from fighting led to the sport becoming stale.
The legendary former middleweight champion was unbeatable for years as he rose through the ranks, and helped to bring fans back to arenas after the coronavirus pandemic. However, he has hit a rough patch of recent form with three stoppage defeats in a 1-4 run since 2022.
He returns to action on Saturday night in the main event of UFC Seattle. His opponent is the divisive contender Joe Pyfer, who is known as one of the hardest hitters in the division and could be the final test of Adesanya’s career if things continue to go wrong for the former champion.
Israel Adesanya dismays over disappointing UFC during his absence
For years, Israel Adesanya was not just a dominant champion at 185lb, but an incredibly active one. Between winning the interim title in April of 2019 and finally losing the undisputed to Sean Strickland after two reigns in September of 2023, he fought 11 times – even with the onset of a pandemic in 2020.
Now, it’s borderline unheard of for a world champion in the UFC to fight any more than twice a year, with many only getting out once. Most notably in his own division, Adesanya has watched as Khamzat Chimaev has become a once-yearly fighter after racing into activity in his early run.
“Look at the middleweight division now,” he told ESPN MMA’s Brett Okamoto ahead of his first fight in over a year. “Khamzat was a very active guy coming up, smoking everybody, fighting multiple times – even twice in a month at one point.
“Now that he’s champion I’m not sure what the deal is. Is it visa issues or is it injuries? I’m not sure because now he’s got a fight coming up. But the last active champion was me, the last guy who put it on the line every time and called out the best was me.
“So that’s one thing I can say that people didn’t appreciate until now that I’m watching it. I’m like ‘damn, this game is slow, stuck without me’.
“That, and I’m sure there’s other things as well that people didn’t appreciate. No one appreciated how active I was and what I gave to the game while I was holding the belt.”