Israel Adesanya looked good in the early going in his fight against Joe Pyfer in the UFC Seattle main event, but then the wheels fell off in the second round when he got trapped on the ground and hammered with punches, leading to a fourth straight loss for the former middleweight champion.
Immediately afterwards, Adesanya defiantly stated that he wasn’t even entertaining retirement by vowing “I’m not f*cking leaving” and promising that he would return to fight again. But at 38 years old off four consecutive losses, should Adesanya consider calling it a career or has he shown enough during his recent fights to keep going?
Retired UFC welterweight Matt Brown, who spent time training with Adesanya in the past, admits that’s a very complicated questions, especially after what unfolded on Saturday night.
“For one, I thought Israel looked fantastic,” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “He looked really good. It looked like it was going his way and everything was working the way that he wanted it to. I was kind of torn, because most people were talking about Israel and how he gave it away. He started to get into a brawl and he messed up and we talk about this ad nauseam— we’ve got to give Joe Pyfer credit. I think Joe Pyfer was really good at biting down on his mouthpiece, coming forward, kept pressuring Izzy and I don’t know Izzy would have won that fight five years ago. I don’t know. I would think that Izzy would but it’s two ways that I look at it.
“One, you have to give Pyfer credit where credit’s due or has all of these last four losses by Izzy with [Sean] Strickland, [Dricus] du Plessis and [Nassourdine] Imavov, has he just lost a step. It certainly didn’t look like it last night or has his time just come? That’s the way this sport works sometimes. He might still be doing everything right, and you’re playing Russian roulette every time you step in the cage to some extent. I’m a little bit more torn on this one than I normally would be. Normally, I’m like you’ve got to give this guy the credit, but I guess what I’m getting at, there’s both sides you’ve got to look at. I think it’s a combination, not mutually exclusive. Pyfer did great. Pyfer had a great game plan, toughed it out, showed guts, and if Izzy has lost a step, that’s going to be enough to do what he did last night.”
If there was part of Adesanya’s game that lacked during his loss, Brown points directly at his grappling skills. Once Adesanya was on the canvas, he struggled to do anything other than survive and even that hope evaporated once Pyfer put him face first on the canvas and started dropping bombs from above.
“The one knock if I’m going to knock anything, his grappling looked terrible,” Brown said. “Once Pyfer did get him down, which he had a hard time getting him down, which everybody tends to do against Israel, but I feel like he’s defended takedowns against better wrestlers than Joe Pyfer, too. That’s the part that really concerns me.
“Is he not grappling at all? Has he got some injuries where he’s not able to grapple? Maybe that’s what’s slowing him down a little bit. I had that problem. I had a back injury for a long part of my career and maybe he’s dealing with that same thing where he just can’t really grapple much in training camp so now his striking gets messed up a little bit, too, because he’s constantly worried about getting taken down.”
Perhaps the toughest part about analyzing Adesanya’s future is figuring out where he goes next after the loss to Pyfer.
The matchup booked for the UFC Seattle main event was already somewhat strange considering Adesanya’s other three losses came against a pair of former champions in Sean Strickland and Dricus du Plessis before he fell by knockout to Nassourdine Imavov, who is ranked as one of the top contenders at 185 pounds. Pyfer was the outlier because he doesn’t have any truly high profile wins, and he was a fringe top-15 fighter at best prior to Saturday night.
Losing that fight puts Adesanya in a very difficult spot because he’s still a legitimate star, but it’s unlikely he’s ever going to climb back up that ladder again to face the best middleweights in the sport again.
“I just don’t know what his motivation is to keep going,” Brown said. “Certainly, he likes competing and fighting and living the lifestyle and everything but I mean a title shot has got to be way far away at this point and against someone like Khamzat [Chimaev], that doesn’t look good for him at all. It’s like what’s your motivation? What’s keeping you going?”
Nobody can truly answer that but Adesanya, although he seems resolved in his decision to continue fighting.
Based on what happened at UFC Seattle, Brown doesn’t really argue that decision because Adesanya looked good right up until the tables turned on him.
But at some point, Adesanya has to get a win because even if all of his setbacks are quality losses, nobody wants to drop five or six fights in a row.
“He’s really made this a complex thing, from the outside looking in, who are we to say for him to do but he made it really feel complex to analyze because he’s looked great in these performances,” Brown said. “I thought he looked great last night until he doesn’t. I don’t know you break that down and say this is what’s going on. There’s guys that get real chinny when they’re getting old and it’s pretty obvious. Those guys that slow down dramatically when they get old and it’s obvious. His isn’t that obvious. People say that he’s slowed down — he doesn’t really look that much slower to me. Maybe his reactions are a little slower, he’s not really countering as much as he once was. To me, it’s become very complex.
“I say if you want to keep fighting, keep fighting. You’re looking good. Hopefully your brain stays in tact but the question is what do you do with him? I’m not sure. There’s always a fight out there. There’s always a fight that makes sense. The matchmakers are pretty good at that. Like oh shit we didn’t think of that. I think most of us in the MMA circle including me and you, we just want to see Izzy perform well and win. I’m a huge fan of Izzy’s . I’ve been a huge fan for a long time. I’d just like to see him go out there and do great. I hate seeing him on a four-fight losing streak. I hate seeing him get beat up.”
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