Israel Adesanya already has his next assignment booked with a fight against Nassourdine Imavov in February, but he’s definitely keeping an eye on Khamzat Chimaev as a future opponent.
That may not have been a matchup on his radar until he saw Chimaev decimate former UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker back in October at UFC 308. On that night, Chimaev scored an early takedown and then locked on a fight-ending face crank/rear-naked choke that actually broke several of Whittaker’s teeth from the tremendous pressure applied to his face.
“I was surprised at the way Khamzat ran through Rob,” Adesanya said on his YouTube channel. “That was crazy. That was like wow. That made me want to fight him. I was like OK, shit, this guy’s actually really, really good.”
Following his win over Whittaker, Chimaev was declared the new No. 1 contender at 185 pounds. However, he’s not booked for the next title shot.
Instead, former champion Sean Strickland travels to Australia in February to challenge reigning middleweight king Dricus du Plessis in a rematch after they first met in January 2024. As much as Chimaev appeared to jump the line with his dominant win over Whittaker, Adesanya had a feeling the UFC was still going to book du Plessis against Strickland.
“I knew they were going to go with this fight because I knew it was coming,” Adesanya said. “They already organized it so I wasn’t like, ‘What?’”
As far as his own fight goes, Adesanya looks to bounce back from two straight losses for the first time in his career after he fell to du Plessis and Strickland in consecutive fights.
His return at the Feb. 1 UFC Fight Night card in Saudi Arabia is also the first time since 2018 that Adesanya isn’t competing on nor headlining a pay-per-view event. That might seem like a slight to some but Adesanya took no offense whatsoever to this particular booking.
“I still get paid,” Adesanya said. “There’s still a referee. There’s two of us in there. There’s still a crowd. So it’s not in the f*cking APEX or something. It doesn’t feel any different. 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.
“Yeah it’s different like, ‘Oh my God it must be eating him alive to be on a Fight Night.’ I was like, it’s a Saudi Arabia Fight Night. I still get paid.”
This is also the first non-title fight for Adesanya since he became an interim UFC champion back in 2019.
In the five years since then, the 35-year-old Nigerian-born fighter has become one of the biggest stars in the UFC with title bouts across two divisions while remaining near the top of the pound-for-pound rankings over the years. He’s in a different position now but that doesn’t necessarily bother him.
Adesanya is taking his fight against Imavov and every future opponent as a challenge to continue to show off his improvements, while hopefully adding a few more accolades to his résumé along the way.
In fact, Adesanya has one very specific goal in mind that has nothing to do with reclaiming his UFC title.
“Because I can,” Adesanya said about why he’s still fighting. “And I’m really, really good at it. I almost forgot how great I was.
“I’ve achieved my dreams in this game. I still have some more dreams to achieve but the main ones I have [achieved]. I’m gonna definitely get a submission. That’s definitely a big one. I don’t even care about the belt. I want to get someone’s f*cking ankle or neck.”
