Israel Adesanya takes on Dricus Du Plessis this weekend with the aim of winning back the middleweight title he lost to Sean Strickland. And in light of the bout being of a personal nature, a former UFC star believes that Saturday is the start of a legendary run which will see Adesanya cement his place as the greatest middleweight of all time.
Brendan Schaub is a former UFC veteran turned pundit who believes in a grand ending for Adesnaya’s UFC career
. According to him, Izzy will win on Saturday and then go on to fight two more times before calling it a day, but not before cementing his place one of the greatest to ever step into the octagon.
And in order to have that storybook ending, he will have to have a trilogy of fights against his biggest rivals.
“This is how Izzy’s career is going to go, he is going to beat Dricus. He is going to outclass him on Saturday… Then he is going to beat Sean Strickland. Then he is going to take a break and then you’re going to get Alex vs Izzy at 205-pounds and that is going to be his last fight ever.”
Write it down. Book mark this clip. Do what ya gotta do. This is how @stylebender movie ends. Period. #ufc305 pic.twitter.com/Zc3jrIyt2N
— Brendan Schaub (@BrendanSchaub) August 12, 2024
According to Schaub, Adesanya is now the hunter and not the hunted which makes him even more dangerous.
The former UFC fighter believes that we will see the same version of ‘Izzy’ on Saturday that stepped in the cage with Pereira during their rematch and knocked him out.
The 41-year-old feels that if Adesanya wins these next three fights, he will cement his place as the greatest middleweight of all time ahead of Anderson Silva. ‘The Last Style Bender’ however, is fighting with a bigger goal in mind.
Adesanya aiming for heads
The upcoming fight against du Plessis is perhaps the most personal fight so far in the UFC for ‘Izzy’, well except the Pereira rematch. But comments made by Du Plessis in the past have not sat well with the Kiwi who says he doesn’t care about the belt anymore.
‘The Last Style Bender’ in recent interviews stated that he has enough belts at home and that now he wants to collect ‘heads’.
Adesanya is not known for his knockout power, his stoppage win over Alex Pereira was his first since September 2020. Therefore, it will be interesting to see if he changes his approach going into the Du Plessis fight.
