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UFC 259 - which went down last weekend - saw current UFC Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya fail in his quest to become a double champion. Instead, he picked up his MMA career's first defeat to UFC Light Heavyweight kingpin Jan Blachowicz.
Israel Adesanya is clearly one of the greatest fighters on the planet right now, but as we saw this weekend, the UFC Middleweight champion is only human.
And just like any other UFC fighter, The Last Stylebender isn’t invulnerable. Sure, Blachowicz became the first man to beat him, but others have definitely given it a good go before.
Here are five times that Israel Adesanya was made to look human inside the UFC.
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#1 Israel Adesanya vs. Marvin Vettori – UFC on Fox: Poirier vs. Gaethje
Back in 2018, Israel Adesanya burst into the UFC with a decisive knockout victory over the unheralded Rob Wilkinson.
It was clear that The Last Stylebender was a prospect to watch, and so just two months after his debut, the UFC bought him back.
Israel Adesanya was faced with Italy’s Marvin Vettori in his second octagon outing. And while Vettori wasn’t a ranked Middleweight, he was clearly a step up from Wilkinson.
And sure enough, that proved to be the case.
Israel Adesanya came out of this fight with his hand raised, but it wasn’t easy by any means. Vettori used his surprising speed to clinch with The Last Stylebender throughout the first round, stifling his flashy striking.
While Israel Adesanya managed to hurt the Italian with a clean elbow in the second round while avoiding any shots in return, he clearly lost the third round.
This was the first time we’d seen Israel Adesanya’s wrestling tested. And he didn’t look too hot as Vettori took him down twice and controlled the round from the top.
Israel Adesanya came away with a split decision win. Still, it taught him two things: firstly, that he needed to shore up his takedown defense, and secondly, that he simply couldn’t fight as passively as he did in the opening round if he wanted to reach the top.
#2 Israel Adesanya vs. Anderson Silva – UFC 234
By the beginning of 2019, Israel Adesanya had already made his mark in the UFC despite being on the roster for just a year.
2018 had seen him beat four straight opponents, and at UFC 234, he was faced with the greatest Middleweight the UFC had ever seen – Anderson Silva.
At this point, though, Silva was a shadow of the great fighter he’d once been.
The Spider had won just one of his last six fights and hadn’t fought in two years due to a USADA suspension. On paper, this should’ve been an easy win for Israel Adesanya.
Instead, The Last Stylebender seemed overawed by his opponent, who he’d reportedly idolized as a young man growing up watching the UFC.
Israel Adesanya did enough to win the fight in the end. But for the most part, it was an even striking bout with both men showing a lot of respect for one another.
Neither man really came close to stopping the other. Israel Adesanya definitely landed the better shots and deserved the nod. But when you consider that fighters such as Jared Cannonier and Uriah Hall went onto finish Silva with little difficulty, it’s hard not to look back on this one as a rare misfire from The Last Stylebender.
#3 Israel Adesanya vs. Kelvin Gastelum – UFC 236
Israel Adesanya got his hands on UFC gold at UFC 236 when he out-pointed Kelvin Gastelum to win the interim UFC Middleweight title.
However, The Last Stylebender had to walk through hell to win the fight. And there’s even an argument to be made that he took more damage from Gastelum than he did at the hands of Jan Blachowicz.
Using the threat of his powerful takedown, as well as his underrated speed, Gastelum became the first man to really hurt Israel Adesanya with his strikes.
In fact, he knocked The Last Stylebender down in the opening round of the clash, becoming the first man to do so in the UFC.
And while Israel Adesanya came back in the second and third rounds, Gastelum had him badly hurt in the fourth round with a brutal head kick.
Somehow though, battered and bloody, Israel Adesanya willed himself back into this fight and took it to Gastelum in the fifth. Adesanya hammered him with a ridiculous amount of strikes that almost had him finished late on.
In the end, it was The Last Stylebender who took a close decision, largely due to the acceleration he showed in the final round.
This was a hugely impressive showing from Israel Adesanya, who showed he had the heart and the toughness of a champion. However, it remains the worst beating he’s taken in the UFC and the fight in which he looked the most human.
#4 Israel Adesanya vs. Yoel Romero – UFC 248
On one hand, Israel Adesanya’s win over Yoel Romero at UFC 248 was relatively straightforward and equally impressive.
The first defense of his newly-won UFC Middleweight title, the fight saw Israel Adesanya out-point perennial contender Romero across five rounds, coming away with a unanimous decision win.
However, The Last Stylebender fought the most passive fight of his UFC career by far. He barely threw any punches at the Cuban, instead choosing to land numerous leg kicks while avoiding Romero’s strikes, which came at an equally sparse clip.
In the end, the crowd in attendance were practically bored to tears. Fans online compared the fight to some of the worst UFC title fights in history, up there with Woodley vs. Thompson and Rizzo vs. Randleman.
Israel Adesanya didn’t lose his title in this fight, and to be fair, any win over Romero at that stage was a good one on paper.
However, with a dull performance, The Last Stylebender showed that even he wasn’t above putting on a stinker in the Octagon.
#5 Israel Adesanya vs. Jan Blachowicz – UFC 259
Naturally, Israel Adesanya’s first UFC loss was always going to be considered one of the moments when he was made to look human in the Octagon.
However, it’s probably not outlandish to suggest that his defeat at the hands of Jan Blachowicz at UFC 259 was perhaps not as bad as his performance against Yoel Romero, for example.
Fighting at 205lbs for the first time in his career – albeit weighing just 200lbs – Israel Adesanya actually did well in the first two rounds.
Sure, he took some shots from Blachowicz too. But it was pretty clear to most observers that it was The Last Stylebender who was getting the better of the exchanges, landing the cleaner blows.
However, as the fight moved into its latter stages, Blachowicz took over.
The third round saw the Pole begin to make his mark with his power strikes, and the fourth and fifth rounds saw Blachowicz take Israel Adesanya down. Possibly due to the size difference between the two, The Last Stylebender was unable to really escape.
In the end, Blachowicz came away with a unanimous decision victory. And while Israel Adesanya fought valiantly, he was definitely made to look human – and probably learned an important lesson about why the UFC has weight classes.
