Having won the UFC Middleweight Championship twice and beaten the likes of Alex Pereira and Anderson Silva along the way, Israel Adesanya has done everything a fighter could hope to accomplish in the UFC. With that said, some are starting to believe the former middleweight champion may have already metaphorically placed his gloves at the center of the octagon.
Recent comments made Adesanya’s coach, Eugene Bareman, have some thinking that Adesanya has already retired. When asked about the former champion, Bareman said he doesn’t know what the fighter will do next.
“If he was going to fight again, then he’s going to fight again,” Bareman continued. “If he’s not, then we’ve been blessed. I’ve been blessed. The world’s been blessed. The team’s been blessed. But yeah, it’s completely up to him.”
After beating Robert Whittaker in 2019 to fully unify the middleweight title, Adesanya successfully defended the belt five times before being knocked out by Pereira at UFC 281. Since then, he’s lost three out of his last four, including two within the distance. Following his latest loss at UFC Fight Night 250, he said that he would take some time off before deciding what to do next.
“I don’t know [what’s next], I have to chill and then think about things. I’ll relax first for a little bit just help the teammates that have fights coming up and, yeah, see what I wanna do. I was gonna do that anyway but now I’m forced to, shout out to Nassourdine [Imacov] for that,” he said.
