Israel Adesanya suffered a fourth straight defeat after he fell to Joe Pyfer in the UFC Seattle main event but that doesn’t mean the former UFC middleweight champion is contemplating retirement.
In fact it might be just the opposite as the defiant Adesanya congratulated Pyfer on a job well done after they engaged in a wild back-and-forth fight before the finish. While it certainly wasn’t the result he wanted, Adesanya didn’t blink when asked about what comes next for him in his career.
“You keep going again and again and again and again and again,” Adesanya shouted. “I’m not f*cking leaving. You’ll never stop me. I might get beaten but I’ll always remain undefeated.”
Prior to the stoppage, Adesanya looked very much like himself in there as he cracked Pyfer with several stiff punches while also punishing the lead leg with a series of nasty kicks. It appeared Adesanya had Pyfer in trouble after battering him on the feet and his confidence was surging.
But that all changed after Pyfer dragged the fight to the floor and nearly locked on a rear-naked choke submission before trapping Adesanya underneath him as he began raining down blows. Adesanya was just trapped with no escape as Pyfer was hammering away with punches until referee Herb Dean just couldn’t let the fight continue any longer.
“I expected the best Joe Pyfer,” Adesanya said about his opponent. “I knew this was his biggest fight ever so he’s going to bring his best and he did. There was nothing surprising. I expected the best, and he brought the best.
“I said before this fight, it’s been 13 months, I wanted to feel like I’ve been in a fight, and he gave me just that. Like I said to him at the weigh-ins, they gave me a shot, now it’s my turn to give him a shot and he earned it and he did so great. So congrats to Joe Pyfer for this.”
The loss drops Adesanya to 0-4 in his past four outings with three of those fights ending by knockout or submission. Despite the results, UFC CEO Dana White still praised Adesanya for his performance, and it didn’t sound like he was contemplating a potentially tough conversation with the former middleweight champion about his future.
White has openly told fighters in the past that it might be time to retire but he didn’t carry that same tone when addressing Adesanya’s performance and loss from Saturday.
“He looked good,” White said about Adesanyan. “He looked fast. Using angles. I thought he looked great.
“For Pyfer to come in at No. 14 and beat Israel Adesanya, one of the best middleweights ever and the No. 4 ranked guy, it’s pretty impressive and to finish him.”
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