Israel Adesanya is confirming reports we’d heard earlier this week from various fight camps where he’d been training: he’s looking to get back into the cage soon, and he wants to do it against Sean Strickland.
Strickland took the middleweight title off Adesanya back at UFC 293 in September 2023. “Tarzan” would then lose the belt to Dricus Du Plessis, who defeated “The Last Stylebender” in August 2024. Adesanya would then drop another L to Nassourdine Imavov in February, putting him on a three-fight losing streak.
Adesanya detailed where he is mentally since that loss in a new YouTube video with famed (and panned) endurance athlete David Goggins.
“I didn’t spar after my last fight because I did so well in the fight, so well in the camp, and I didn’t get the result I wanted,” Adesanya said. “But I was like, ‘I’m still proud of myself. I’m still proud of the way I worked.’ So then I didn’t spar because I just looked after my brain. And then when I was in Miami recently watching Volk get his belt back, then I sparred with Kamaru Usman for the first time in months.”
“I knew once I sparred, I’d be like, ‘Man, y’all got any fights?’ So for me now, I’m like okay, I told Hunter [Campbell] already, I told coach that it’s time. I just knew, and I know who. I have a feeling who I want to fight. You’ll like this one. I gotta get some get back. Strickland. I’m gonna get him back.”
Izzy had some obvious and less-than-obvious reasons for wanting a rematch with Strickland.
“Because he beat me fair and square in Sydney, five nil,” Adesanya explained. “Just whooped my ass badly. And again, that was one of the things what made me realize that I need to slow down in my activity. I was fighting like three, four times a year as a champion. So, I was like, I’m going to pull back now because I’m older, I’m doing things different. So, I don’t want to make excuses, because he beat me, but then I just want to show him, if you beat me at my best. This time, I’m gonna come at him correct.”
Then there’s the narrative that Adesanya is building to hype himself up for a metaphysical battle.
“I used to get bullied a lot as a kid,” Izzy said. “So he’s an embodiment of that, in a sense. He attacked the young me, the inner child. So I just want to protect him and get some get back for him.”
Strickland has gone 1-2 since the Adesanya win, losing twice to Dricus du Plessis but beating Paulo Costa in-between. He’s another fighter that always seems to be going through internal struggles, so we’ll see how his inner demons match up against Israel’s inner child later this year.
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