Israel Adesanya shares photo with former foe Robert Whittaker: "Did we just become best friends?!"

Israel Adesanya recently shared a photo on social media a man he has faced twice - none other than former UFC middleweight champion, Robert 'The Reaper' Whittaker. The two have faced each other twice in the past, with Adesanya securing victories in both fights.

Their first encounter took place at UFC 243 in 2019, where ‘The Last Stylebender’ achieved a dominant KO/TKO victory. Their rematch was highly competitive and went to the judges' scorecards, with Adesanya winning via unanimous decision.

Currently on a two-fight losing streak, Adesanya was seen training alongside ‘The Reaper’ in New Zealand ahead of his much-anticipated fight against Nassourdine Imavov at UFC Abu Dhabi on Feb.1.

First, Adesanya took to Instagram to share some images from their training session.

Check out Israel Adesanya's post below:

Then, 'The Last Stylebender' took to X to tease a podcast and highlight their growing camaraderie. In the caption, he wrote:

“Did we just become best friends?! - Step Brothers.”

Check out Israel Adesanya’s X post below:

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Robert Whittaker reveals how he ended up training with Israel Adesanya at City Kickboxing

In a recent appearance on Fox Sports Australia, Robert Whittaker was asked about his training sessions with Israel Adesanya. The Australian revealed how he ended up training at City Kickboxing, and said that he didn’t have training partners, so he started looking around and got the idea to train in New Zealand. Whittaker said:

“If you had asked me a few years ago if I had ever seen this coming, the answer would have been not in a 100 years, right? one of my training partners got injured, a couple of the boys retired, had other commitments they wanted to focus on, and I sat down with the team, and Alex was like, ‘We need some bodies. How are we going to get them?.”

He continued:

“We started looking global. Then, like a lightning bolt, I realized that City Kickboxing is only a two-and-a-half-hour flight away, and they’ve got the bodies. Everything just started lining up, right? So Alex reached out to Eugene, had a conversation, me, Alex, and a couple of training partners came over here just to test the waters, see if we all get along. And yeah, you know, we’re getting along."

Check out Robert Whittaker’s comments below (1:00):