Specified that he’s currently defeated a lot of of the best contenders in the division — in some scenarios, 2 times — UFC middleweight winner Israel Adesanya is usually on the hunt for clean meat.
Adesanya will get said clean meat when he defends his 185-pound crown against Sean Strickland in the UFC 293 headliner this impending Saturday in Sydney, Australia.
Afterwards, he could close up going through a further new opponent in Dricus du Plessis, who was originally set to fight him at UFC 293, but had to decrease as the turnaround was as well swift for him.
Further than that, there is certainly an even fresher possible matchup for Adesanya — and arguably the most intriguing — in Khamzat Chimaev. Chimaev returns to motion at UFC 294 on Oct. 21 in Abu Dhabi when he fights rival Paulo Costa in a middleweight experience.
It will be his initial battle from a middleweight contender and there is a circumstance to be made that the winner could get the up coming title shot. Even though Adesanya isn’t going to know who will get, he is rooting for Chimaev to occur out on major.
“I don’t know who’s heading to gain but I feel if I’m favoring, I could possibly be favoring Khamzat a tiny bit much more,” Adesanya told MMA Battling. “Because I like new blood.”
Adesanya notably defeated Costa at UFC 253 again in Sept. 2020 with a second-spherical TKO earn. The two fighters were undefeated at the time with Costa carrying lots of hoopla heading into the battle. On the other hand, Adesanya outclassed him and defeated him with ease.
That reported, he warned Chimaev that Costa even now remains a challenging fight for just about everyone else in the division.
“I just made Paulo search easy but have confidence in me, he’s a tough combat,” Adesanya reported. “He’s a hard battle but I produced him glance simple. But I consider I’m rooting for Khamzat a lot more in that struggle.”
Ought to Chimaev win, lots of will be campaigning for him to get the up coming title shot even more than Du Plessis. Adesanya absolutely will not look to mind the notion as he’s even open up to preventing Chimaev in advance of the close of the 12 months.
“Ain’t that funny?” Adesanya additional. “I’m the a single basically pushing for fights. I’m even hoping to have a single more this 12 months. We’ll see. Yeah, unquestionably [might get one more fight this year]. We’ll see.”
But first issues initially — Adesanya will have to get previous the check of Strickland.