5 reasons why Israel Adesanya is currently the best striker in the UFC 

#4. Adesanya is excellent on the outside

Many fighters possess height and reach advantages over their opponents. However, most of them do not utilize their length advantages properly. Stefan Struve, for example, remains the tallest and longest fighter in UFC history. Yet, the former heavyweight never made intelligent use of those advantages despite his kickboxing background. Israel Adesanya, by contrast, makes exceptional use of his height and reach at every range.

From the outside, Adesanya punishes his foes with thunderous low kicks, using his length to outstrike his opponents from farther out than their strikes can connect. He pairs up his low kicks with feints. Israel Adesanya, in particular, uses his entire body to feint. He uses his shoulders, hands, and especially his hips when he's at long range. He thrusts his hips, using the threat of his established kicks to force his opponents into a purely reactive mindset. If all his opponent does is react constantly, they no longer have any initiative in the fight and will eventually react incorrectly as Adesanya dictates every single moment of the bout.

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#3. He is just as comfortable on the inside

Despite his long reach, Adesanya is dangerous on the inside, where most of his counter-punching takes place. Because Israel Adesanya is taller and longer than his opponents, he can afford to pull away from strikes—even kicks—at the waist, forcing his foe to overextend on their punches, in particular. Once he draws out their overextension, Adesanya twists and turns his torso into a brutal counter-left hook. Most of his combinations come at this range where he can lean away, use pull counters, and chain together punches when his foes are out of position due to their overextension.

Doing this not only exposes his opponents to fight-ending combinations, it is also a form of psychological warfare. By making his opponent's punches miss so frequently when they target his head, Israel Adesanya causes his foes to obsess over landing the knockout blow, duping them into thinking that due to their other punches missing, the next punch they throw must knock Adesanya out. Thus, Adesanya tricks his opponents into believing that every punch they throw must count because if they miss most of their punches, the few that do land must have maximum power behind them otherwise they'll lose on points. This not only gasses his opponents out faster due to high energy expenditure, but it also makes them overextend even more, and runs them into Israel Adesanya's counters.