Israel Adesanya very nearly locked horns with former ONE two-division champion Reinier de Ridder.
One of the most accomplished fighters of his generation, Adesanya is currently on the longest layoff of his MMA career, having not competed since his knockout loss to Nassourdine Imavov at UFC Riyadh this past February. But that wasn’t exactly a plan. Speaking on his YouTube channel, Adesanya revealed that while he intended to take some time off after the loss, he was potentially going to step in for
a short-notice fight this past fall, before an injury upended those plans.
“A year without fighting. I’ve never done that before in this game,” Adesanya said. “So this is new territory, uncharted territory, and it’s exciting. …
“I came back home, and I was just back into the regular flow of things. There was no inkling like, ‘I need to fight again. I need to fight soon.’ I was just like, nah, I’m going to chill for a bit. I wasn’t hurt from the fight itself. I just took the time to just do me.
“I was going to fight last year, but then I got injured in the gym, and then that opportunity got taken away. It was a short-notice fight, as well. And I’ve never done one of those, so that would have been exciting.”
That short-notice fight, it turns out, was against de Ridder, who was scheduled to face Anthony Hernandez in the main event of UFC Vancouver in October, before an injury forced “Fluffy” off the card.
“RDR. On five weeks’ notice, six weeks’ notice,” Adesanya said. “I was already training, so I was getting ready for a fight. So it would have been like, ‘Right, I’ve never done this before. You’re fit. Hop in there.’ But then that moment got taken away from me. But that’s, in hindsight, the best thing. Even though I wasn’t happy with it then, it was the best thing.”
Instead, Brendan Allen stepped in to face de Ridder, stopping the ONE champion in the fourth round. Adesanya, meanwhile, recovered and is now set to fight Joe Pyfer in the main event of UFC Seattle on March 28. And while this matchup doesn’t give Adesanya the same opportunity to do something new like the de Ridder fight would have, he still hopes to break new ground against Pyfer.
“My ego is still — I want to shine,” Adesanya said. “That’s the thing, I always want to shine. And I will shine. So, I can’t wait. I know I can do, and I feel like people haven’t seen my full array of skills yet, and I just want to show off a lot of skills that I haven’t showed off yet. So, in these fights, not that I’m going to be looking for them, but you’ll see. You’ll see me do things I’ve never done before, because I feel like they’ll be presented to me. …
“I just want to show off,” Adesanya added, later. “I just want to show skills. I want to display skills, you know? It’s about skills now, making money, making memories, making history.”
