Things have not been going great for Israel Adesanya in the cage lately. The former UFC middleweight champ, and future Hall of Famer, has lost his last four fights in a row. And the three most recent of those were all stoppages.
In March he waspounded out by Joe Pyfer in the second round. Before that he was clippedand flash KO’d by Nassourdine Imavov. The Last Stylebender’s last win was hisaura farmingrevenge KO of Alex Pereira in 2023.
Clearly Adesanya’s best fighting years are behind him, at this
point. And this week Adesanya uploaded a video to YouTube, alongside his friend and training partner Alexander Volkanovski, to discuss what his retirement might look like.
Neither fighter gave any timelines for when those retirements might come. Adesanya did say, once that day did come, he would be committed to staying retired — a tough task for most MMA fighters.
“I think, personally, after all this is said and done, every other month, maybe every three months, I’ll need or want to do something,” Adesanya said (h/t Alexander K. Lee of MMA Fighting). “Not need, I don’t know. Maybe I’d want to do something that’s risky like run with the bulls. I might jump in the World Series of Poker. … See, my secret with poker is I don’t know what the f*ck I’m doing, which is my best weapon, I believe. But I’d like to do something like that, just to risk it, because I like the adrenaline. I love the adrenaline, but I guess people have a hard time leaving this life.”
Despite feeling like he would still need an adrenaline kick, Adesanya promised that he wouldn’t look for that with a return to fighting.
“I’ve seen it in this game. The accolades, the spotlight. When they get done, they may come out of retirement because they don’t know what to do with themselves. I never want to be that guy, so once I’m done, I’m f*cking done.”
Adesanya also said that he was looking forward to taking up some acting opportunities once his calendar was a little more open. He claimed he turned down two big gigs while preparing for title fights in the past.
Adesanya’s buddy Volkanovski might be able to help him out with that. We get to see him in the new Street Fighter movie next week. Adesanya said he was getting some advice from Georges St-Pierre, too, someone else who has done well to leverage his fighting fame into a broader media career.
“And also talking to Georges [St-Pierre], he’s like my Fairy Godmother, he just pops up at the most random places. … He’ll just drop gems and just kind of let you know where you are, because not many have been to where we’ve been, so they can’t relate, and Georges can. He’s retired and he’s done it, clocked the game at the highest level. So for me, when he tells me something, I listen. It holds weight. So now after talking to him and also consulting with my own self, I kind of feel like I have opportunities now. Doing stuff like this, so much content we filmed, more that we can film, we’re going to be traveling the next few weeks and then I’ll just line some shit up. It’s fun and it kind of gives me the reassurance that I’ll be OK after this shit is over, like, I don’t need to be the guy who needs to fight.”
There’s few in MMA who have had as good a retirement as St-Pierre. The Canadian went on hiatus after defeating Johny Hendricks in 2013, for his tenth UFC welterweight title defense. He returned four years later and made short work of Michael Bisping to win the UFC middleweight title. ‘Rush’ then said goodbye to fighting for good (it seems).
There’s a reason why the term ‘MMA retirement’ often elicits smirks. This weekend we have Niko Price returning for one more fight (supposedly) after saying he retired earlier this year. A few weeks ago Anthony Smithlost a bareknuckleMMA fight after he was given an unusually rousing retirement ceremony by UFC.
We often groan when we hear a fighter is retiring, since we so often see them come back and take a few more beatings before eventually quitting for good. There’s a reason why this keeps happening, though. Fighters give their lives to do this. And when their bodies break down, a lot of them don’t have much to fall back on as a replacement (for either enjoyment or compensation).
I hope Adesanya retires like St-Pierre and not like Smith. Sadly, given how this sport is run, it’s hard to feel confident in that happening.
