Updated: Sep 29, 2020 9:41 pm
If you’ve ever had the privilege of watching Israel Adesanya fight, you know that he is the perfect example of handcrafted precision.
In his most recent fight, so many people felt this would be the fight that would finally DE-thrown the champ. Â They felt Paulo Costa had the advantage because of his size, his strength and his overall power. If you’ve seen Costa, you know he’s like a modern day Hercules.
Costa’s punches are explosive and when you factor that against a more slender-framed Adesanya, it seemed that Adesanya would not make it out the fight unharmed.
But the very opposite happened! If you count the amount of strikes Costa landed in his fight against the champ, you’ll come up with a mere 12 to Adesanya’s 55, and we’re not even counting those style bending leg kicks.
In Costa’s fight against Uriah Hall, with about the same amount of time, he landed 75 strikes to Hall’s 58. He landed more strikes in his 2017 fight, which he landed a 1st round TKO at 1:17. That fight, he landed 22 strikes. In his 2019 fight against Yoel Romero, Costa landed 118 strikes to Romero’s 125.
For someone who could have potentially won the fight with any combination of gut-wrenching punches, not only did he barely strike, but his strikes were extremely subpar.
Why is that?
It’s because Stylebender is the perfect example of handcrafted precision. Not only is he precise, but his method of calculating his opponent’s next moves is on a whole other level. It’s as if he time travels as he fights, and he sees his opponent’s moves before they even think of it. The fact that Costa was paralyzed from throwing his spectacular punches is evidence that Israel lives up to the hype.
Adesanya, just landed his 100th win. Out of his more than 100 professional fights, his loss count isn’t even in the double digits. He’s also only been professionally fighting for less than 10 years. That’s an average of 10 fights a year. The crazy part is, Stylebender is only getting better!
There’s currently a lot of talk about what would happen if he fought Jon Jones. I think it would be a spectacular fight because they are so similar in stature. I also think, taking on that fight would unleash a new version of Adesanya. Jones fights dirty. His toe stumps, shoulder thrusts and “accidental” eye pokes often weaken his “prey.”
Imagine Adesanya fighting methodically and ruthlessly! At this point, I think only a few people can even stand toe to toe with the reigning, undefeated UFC champ. I say put the fight together and let’s see what happens.
In the meantime, to all the naysayers, doubters, people wondering, or who just may not know, when it comes to Israel Adesanya, believe the hype…ALL OF IT!
