Israel Adesanya on UFC 259 title bout with Jan Blachowicz: ‘All the pressure is on him’
The UFC middleweight champion spoke with Yahoo Sports MMA insider Kevin Iole about this Saturday’s light heavyweight championship bout with title holder Jan Blachowicz.
Video Transcript
KEVIN IOLE: I am Kevin Iole, and welcome to Yahoo Sports and one of my favorite guys to interview-- and one of my favorite guys to watch fight-- is with me right now, the middleweight champion of the world. Soon to be light heavyweight champ? We will find out on Saturday.
He is fighting Jan Blachowicz at the Apex on Saturday. Israel Adesanya, the UFC middleweight champ. How are you, Izzy?
ISRAEL ADESANYA: I am great, baby. What's up, Kevin?
KEVIN IOLE: I am doing really good. This is quite the card on Saturday-- three title fights. Also have Drew Dober and Islam Makhachev, which I think is going to be a fantastic fight. I'm really looking forward to.
But you are trying to make UFC history, and I think this is a journey for you because this could be the second of maybe three championships for Israel Adesanya if you can pull this off. But what made you decide the time is now to do this? Why is now the time to go after the second belt?
ISRAEL ADESANYA: I really didn't decide, to be honest. I had my eyes set on keep on dominating the middleweight division, if they could fight contenders. But then my coaches, the coaches at my gym, already had a discussion behind my back after the fight or previous to my last fight.
And then about an hour after the fight, Eugene pulled me aside and kind of told me like, look, this is what we're thinking. Blah blah blah. And then they laid it out to me and pitched it to me. And yeah, it made sense.
KEVIN IOLE: You know, one of the problems I think you get when you do what you're trying to do is go up, and I know there's a possibility of you fighting in heavyweight in the future. Is this hard to go back down? You have guys-- Roy Jones proved that in boxing.
When he went to heavyweight, he was never the same at light heavyweight. So winning this title on Saturday, are your middleweight days done? Or do you think there's a chance you could defend that belt again?
ISRAEL ADESANYA: No, I go back to middleweight. I defend that, and I go up to light heavyweight again. Like, this is my frame. My frame is very, I guess, versatile. So yeah, I'm able to do that, but I don't have to put on the muscle like people always think.
People think you have to put on this excessive amount of muscle to go up to a heavyweight or light heavyweight, but I think that's a bit silly, if you ask me. And yeah, yeah, in time everything will be unfolding.
KEVIN IOLE: I know you're a guy that doesn't say anything without having thought about it, right? And you just said, you don't put on a lot of muscle. And so of course, a guy that you've had a big rivalry with is John Jones, and I'm sure you have seen the photos of John Jones, who looks massive as a heavyweight, as he is training for his heavyweight debut this year.
Do you think it is silly that John Jones, who has a frame similar to yours-- tall, long, limbs and everything. Do you think it's silly that he has put on all this weight? I think you said he weighed 250-something.
ISRAEL ADESANYA: Yeah, I think it is, but you know, he's about to find out.
KEVIN IOLE: You say he's about to find out. Like, when you get in the heavyweight division-- most people I heard say the light heavyweight division is scarier than the heavyweight because the guys are quicker, and they hit hard, right? So you know, you get those big guys who maybe don't move quite as fast.
You know, so when you say, he's about to find out, what do you mean by that?
ISRAEL ADESANYA: I think you could have done world heavyweight even as a light heavyweight frame, so yeah, he's about to find out. But yeah, enough about him anyway. This is my fight week I'm getting that done.
KEVIN IOLE: [LAUGHS]
ISRAEL ADESANYA: I'm doing that within 3 years, something that, you know, he has never done. And [BLEEP] [INAUDIBLE], so yeah, it is what it is-- my week. Let's go.
KEVIN IOLE: And you know, Jan is a guy that's coming off a really impressive win over Dominick Reyes, who had given John Jones a lot of hell. He knocked him out, came off a knock out of Corey Anderson. And while those aren't guys that, you know, are of your caliber-- both pretty strong fighters.
This is a guy who also has a black belt in Brazilian jujitsu. You know, beat Jacare, so he's a pretty well-rounded guy. How do you attack him given, you know, given his diverse skills he has?
He has the knockout power. He has that black belt if he gets to fight on the ground. You know, he knows his way around. How do you attack him?
ISRAEL ADESANYA: I attack him the way I attack everyone else, with smarts, with my brain. I don't go in there and attack recklessly. I attack calculated. Anymore when I take risks, I've already calculated them, so when I take those risks, the percentages are in my favor.
So yeah, I do what I always do. I do what got me to the dance. I keep the same energy.
KEVIN IOLE: Right. You know, he knocked out Luke Rockhold. And the people who were supporting him-- you know, he's an underdog in the fight-- are going to say Luke Rockhold's one of the great athletes in the UFC. And well, I agree with that, but I think Luke Rockhold maybe was at the end of the line when that happened.
And you're a sort of a different caliber of athlete with the kind of footwork that I think maybe he's never seen before. Would you agree with that, that your footwork is something in this fight that really is going to make a big difference?
ISRAEL ADESANYA: 100%. I know for a fact he's never seen for like mine, and I know he's never felt-- you know what I mean? It's different when you look at it, but we feel it, when you fall into the traps because you're just susceptible to it, because you're a human being. It's different when you feel it.
KEVIN IOLE: A lot of people, like when they talk about you moving up, you know, they talk about your fight with Gastelum. Hey, Gastelum was able to put pressure. Not a big guy-- and if he had trouble in that fight and everything. But you know, I wanted to ask you this.
I'm sure you saw the story this week that came out about your last opponent, Paulo Costa, and he was drinking wine. He said he was drinking wine before the fight. And if that's true-- let's say, if that is true that in fact he was doing that, my question for you would be this.
Do you think that that's indicative of how, you know, how people view you? Like, in other words, he looked at you and said, hey, this guy is so-- that he worked himself into a situation where he had a drink to be able to make the walk?
ISRAEL ADESANYA: Listen, I done worse before a fight. And the outcome later on in my time, when I'm ready to tell the tales of my story. I think he just needs to man up and take the loss. Take the loss as a man, and move on because that's what's going to help him grow.
It's his ego. His ego is so fragile because like I said, he's this bully who just had everything go his way for the longest time. So his fragile [BLEEP]-ass ego can't handle the fact that the skinny clown happened to whip his ass badly, worse than he ever could imagine.
So you just have to take the L and be like, right, I need to reassess my game. I need to reassess my team. But nope, his ego is too fragile, so he has to keep on finding new excuses. So we'll see what it is in two weeks from now.
KEVIN IOLE: I think when you look at, you know, what you did to weigh-in on that fight, you know, and he threw a thing, and you threw the belt back at him and everything. And I almost wonder if you got into his head there, and you felt like-- and you're good at that, right?
You made the fight, essentially, you know, one-sided right at that point.
ISRAEL ADESANYA: It was done from the first meeting. I met him in the hallway earlier that week, and then they were trying to say I was bitching out. And I was like, no. I was right there. I walked up to him. And I sized him up.
And he, you know, I guess, submitted to me, but then everyone was like, oh my God. Izzy's getting worked. He's in Izzy's head. And then even after the part where I snatched the belt mid-strike and I whipped him with it, you know, all the body analysis experts were like, oh my God, Izzy is so reactive.
He's so angry. He's in Izzy's head. And then I told you, this is different. Like, it's me and him that know what's up, you know? That's why even previous opponents understand why not. You can understand now why my previous opponents before that found it hard to move against me, and I made them freeze.
I made him freeze because they knew if they made a move, it was over for them. So yeah, in hindsight, it's easy to say all these things, but next time people want to tell you something, believe me.
KEVIN IOLE: Yeah, you know, I mean, I think given what you've done in such a short period of time, you know, you've kind of created this aura around yourself. And certainly you use that to your advantage. And you know, Jan is a guy that, hey, give him credit. He won the championship.
But you know, he won a vacant championship. He didn't beat John Jones for the title. You know, he won a vacant championship. And I wonder if you feel like mentally you have an advantage on him because he's looking on your side and seeing this list of defenses that you've made.
He's seen some of the things that you've done. And do you feel like mentally you've already got an edge on him in the fight?
ISRAEL ADESANYA: Jan is a guy that's, you know, he's stoic. He's from this part of the world where I don't think this is-- if I really wanted to play up on that, yeah, I could, but there's nothing really that's going to be an easy target. He's not as emotional as Paulo was.
Paulo was easy to play with and toy with emotionally and mentally. But Jan, he's not as emotional as Paulo was, so there's no point in wasting my energy trying to do anything with him. And also he never said anything stupid to me first to [INAUDIBLE] me having to fuck with him.
But yeah, all the pressure's on him. I mean, he's representing for the light heavyweights. Here comes a skinny boy from middleweight coming up is going to whip his ass. Yeah, so he has to step up and really [INAUDIBLE] for the light heavyweights. So that's all the pressure on him.
But that's how I see it from the outsider's perspective. In my head, I put all the pressure on me because of what I'm trying to get done. So yeah, [INAUDIBLE] that kind of pressure on myself because it makes me shine. It makes me-- yeah, it makes me work under that pressure.
KEVIN IOLE: You are like Conor McGregor in one way in that you have these long goals and you want to get-- and I wonder. You know, I referenced it at the beginning of potentially winning three championships. I mean, is a heavyweight championship something that's in your mind?
And do you feel like, you know, in the next year or so that you could try that?
ISRAEL ADESANYA: Yeah, depending on how this next heavyweight title belt goes, it could be, but also, like I've said before, I like the idea with four UFC champions. That is myself, Kamaru, and Francis coming from, you know, the continent, the great, great continent of Africa.
We're taking a lot of gold back, too, that was stolen from us, so yeah, I like that. I like that look. It's a powerful image that can inspire our people. So yeah, I prefer that over being, to be honest, the triple champion of the UFC.
KEVIN IOLE: Well, I mean, if you think about that, like, already, you know, kids in Nigeria are motivated by what you have done and what Kamaru has done as well. You know, that's a big thing, but if you had that kind of bully pulpit, that hey, you not only won the middleweight title but the light heavyweight and the heavyweight title.
Think about where you are in the sport. I mean, you'd probably be considered the pound for pound best in the world. You might be considered the best who's ever done it at that stage. And that would-- if nothing would bring fighters, that would be like Tiger Woods in golf.
You would bring a lot of people into the sport who wouldn't have tried it otherwise.
ISRAEL ADESANYA: Yeah, I could do that with being the light heavyweight champion and the middleweight champion. But think about, you know, three individuals and then Francis Ngannou as well, Kamaru hailing from the great country of Cameroon as UFC Champions.
I think that's an even more powerful image, so I think, to be honest, it's bigger than me. Definitely I like the facts that, you know, all those things, all those accolades can boost my stock up. But yeah, it's bigger than me.
It's about us, and it's about our people. So I'm rooting for Francis to get it done next month.
KEVIN IOLE: You know, do you believe there's anything to it? Like, is Nigeria, is Africa-- there are a lot of fight people there. Because you see historically in boxing, there's been a couple African champions, a couple of, you know-- Azumah Nelson, one of the best fighters I ever saw, came from Africa.
There's been some good fighters but not the number of quality fighters like you would think there might be otherwise, right? And I wonder, in MMA, do you think that you're just kind of scratching the surface, and you're going to unleash a number of African fighters in the future?
ISRAEL ADESANYA: I mean, I think there's always been world-class fighters from Nigeria or the great continent of Africa. I think the only thing was just opportunity. A lot of them just never had the opportunity to shine, never had an opportunity to get out into the mainstream, into the, I guess, even the United States.
But now, shout out to the power of the internet, making the world a smaller place. Yeah, it's making things easier for a lot of people to see what's possible. It's making it easier for a lot of people from our continent to dream.
And yeah, I just think you guys are just seeing the, like, just the beginning because I'm telling you, once the great continent of Africa catches on to this whole MMA game, it's a wrap for the next few years.
KEVIN IOLE: Wow. How many languages do you speak? I know you speak multiple. I wonder, can you speak to people in the different countries in their language? Because that sometimes is so important, that you can communicate in their language.
ISRAEL ADESANYA: I mean, I speak Pidgin English as well. [INAUDIBLE]. But that's, like, a generic language used across West Africa. Well, I speak Yoruba. That's my native tongue. English is my first language, but also I spoke a little bit of Chinese. And I'm beginning to get back into it.
I've been saying that for, like, the last 2 years, but it's just-- I need someone to teach me. But yeah, I'm very flexible. I'm very adaptable to new situations. So yeah, put me in a sport, and I can shine.
KEVIN IOLE: So anyways, we are looking to get you out of here. So I want to just finish with this one thing. Everybody loves your walk-in. So anything special planned for this one?
ISRAEL ADESANYA: No, man, what I did in Melbourne at 243, that was special because that was in my backyard. That was my show. Still the biggest attendance in UFC history to date. And I mean, if you look in the hindsight now, look at what's happening in the world.
That was a feat to have, you know, all the 57,127 people in attendance. I think-- don't maybe quote me on that. But yeah, so with the fact that we don't even have crowds right now, I look back on that, and I'm like, [BLEEP], I really did that. I could say, we really did that because I guess Robert was fighting as well, whatever.
But yeah, [BLEEP]. Like, it's a special, special achievement. But yeah, the walk-out was just for that, for that moment in time. if I keep doing it, I feel like it takes away from that event, you know, the spectacularness of that event.
So no, I'm just going to keep the same energy like I've always done in the UFC. That was just a special moment, so I might do it again one day for another special fight. But right now, it's just back to business as usual.
I do have certain characters I like to embody, but it's just business as usual.
KEVIN IOLE: Well, I appreciate it, champ. I know you've got a busy day today. So I'll let you roll. UFC 259 on Saturday at Apex. Israel Adesanya in the main event. Be there. See you, buddy.
ISRAEL ADESANYA: Thanks, Kev. Easy.
