Israel Adesanya is one of the most prominent names of the UFC. In addition to his eye-pleasing fighting style, he also comes to the fore with his interesting personality.
Adesanya was born in 1989 in Lagos, Nigeria's largest city. Adesanya, who lived in Nigeria until the age of 13, later moved to New Zealand with his family. Inspired by the movie Ong Bak, he started kickboxing. The fighter nicknamed "the last style bender", who had a very successful kickboxing career, also had the opportunity to fight in Glory, the largest kickboxing organization of today.
Israel Mobolaji Temitayo Odunayo Oluwafemi Owolabi Adesanya (born 22 July 1989) is a New Zealand professional mixed martial artist, kickboxer, and former boxer with multiple championships in all three disciplines. As a mixed martial artist, he currently competes in the Middleweight division in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), where he is the current and two-time UFC Middleweight Champion. In kickboxing, he is a former Glory Middleweight Championship title challenger. As of March 21, 2023, he is #5 in the UFC men's pound-for-pound rankings.
In 2012, he started his MMA career as well as kickboxing. He won all 11 matches by knockout in New Zealand, China and Australia. Their match lasted a maximum of 2 rounds. He signed a contract with the UFC after the match in which he knocked out Stuart Dare. He won all 4 matches he played in the UFC and received the Performance of the Night award in 3 of them.
2020
He defended his belt for the second time by knocking out the undefeated Paulo Costa. He continues his MMA career with 20 matches and 20 wins. He seems to have no rival in the middleweight weight class as of 2020.
September 2023
Mark Zuckerberg trained with UFC champions on a speedboat
Meta CEO, who is also trained in various martial arts and is known to be a UFC fan, spent time on the mat with the fighters in July. 39-year-old Zuckerberg has now shared a video of himself, Adesanya, and Volkanovski training on a speedboat, edited in the style of a movie trailer.
Nigerian-New Zealander Adesanya will defend his title against Sean Strickland in the main event of UFC 293 on Saturday, September 9, 2023. The event will take place in Sydney, near Volkanovski's hometown of Wollongong.