Israel Adesanya is ready to reclaim his spot at the top of the UFC middleweight division.
Former two-time champion Adesanya returns to action in the main event of UFC 305 in Perth, Australia, where he’ll challenge South Africa’s reigning undisputed UFC middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis for the 185-pound title.
It’s a matchup that Adesanya is supremely confident he’ll win, with the Nigerian-New Zealander saying that his fighting style will prove to be too sharp and too good for the defending champion
“Dricus Du Plessis is a guy who fights the way he fights,” Adesanya told Stake.com.
“He gets a lot of success, but it leaves him very vulnerable. When you fight a guy who is very precise and lethal like me? Come on…
“The highlights will always be there. The way I fight will always produce highlights, and those are nice bonuses, but I don’t look for them, they just show up.”
Adesanya said that he doesn’t expect Du Plessis to stand with him for long. In fact, he predicted that the champion will turn into a wrestler from the moment the bout gets underway.
“I think he’s going to shoot straight away,” he said.
“I doubt he’ll want to strike with me for too long. This is something that people always say, but I’ve shown before that I can wrestle, too. It might not be how everyone else wrestles, but I can wrestle, too. That’s why I ended up becoming world champion.”
Adesanya is refreshed and ready to come back in style after a lengthy career hiatus following his title loss to Sean Strickland. But now, after regrouping and spending some time out of competition, he’s ready to return, and plans on recapturing his middleweight crown.
“This is the longest layoff in my whole fighting career,” he said.
“I kind of got forced into taking a break because my body needed it. Not because of the fights, but the training camps. My mind, body and spirit needed it, and I’m glad I got the break I needed and reset myself, reaffirm myself. Let’s go!
“My team is everything you need. I’m a friendly guy and a lot of the people I connect with feel like they’ve known me for years, but my team are the ones who will always be around me because they understand me.
“I’ve been here before, I’ve lost before and I know how things change, so for me, the defeat didn’t shake me. You watch this … I’m going to smoke this fool. I’ve been here before, but I’ll play the game a little differently this time.”
And, when it comes to his overall motivation, Adesanya explained that the title is only part of the equation.
“It’s not so much about the belt. For me it’s when people doubt my skills after what I’ve done in this game and the classics that I’ve made,” he said.
“The main driving force is for me proving to myself that I am still me, I am still Israel Adesanya, and what drives me is proving me, to me.”
