PHOTO: Israel Adesanya Packs on Muscle Ahead of UFC 305

The RAC Arena in Perth will serve as the fight capital of the world this weekend, with the UFC extravaganza returning to Australia featuring a massive main-event title fight between Israel Adesanya & champion, Dricus du Plessis. And as it turns out, Izzy is all set to reclaim his lost title, coming out in a new chiseled, ripped look for UFC 305.

If one compares Adesanya before his fight against Sean Strickland and his upcoming title bout against the Proteas, they can clearly see the difference. Izzy looks primed with all of his abs protruding out, and a bigger chest all owing to his intense training for the South African champion.

 

This shouldn’t come as a surprise however, given his teammate Dan Hooker had revealed how much he hated sparring against the former champion since he’s gotten so big and hit so hard.

Meanwhile, Adesanya also has a bit of a personal grudge to settle against du Plessis.

The middleweight title saw a change of hands after Sean Strickland beat Izzy last year in September. However, the proud American lost the belt to du Plessis in his very first title defense and has remained comparatively silent ever since.

Now, Adesanya is aiming to reclaim the 185-lb belt, channeling his warrior spirit, being arguably in the best fighting shape and almost as if he were firing a warning shot, has claimed that he’s had enough titles for a lifetime and was coming to collect heads.

In other news, Izzy recently poked a sly one on the UFC for supposedly trying to erase his buddy and former heavyweight champion, Francis Ngannou’s legacy.

Adesanya responds to UFC’s Ngannou erasure.

Kamaru Usman, Israel Adesanya & Francis Ngannou were the 3 African kings in the UFC. They stood tall with the belts wrapped around the waist, ruling their respective divisions with an iron fist.

Then Ngannou took a moral stand against the company and left to join the PFL after negotiations over guaranteed fighter pay fell out. Since then, the UFC has seemingly tried to erase his existence from the company.

From calling someone else the first Cameroonian fighter in the company to editing out his name when Izzy talked about him at a press conference, the whole thing has reeked of pettiness and the former middleweight champion isn’t going to sit down and take it.

The Nigerian-born was Kiwi was addressing the media during his pre-fight presser when he poked at the UFC for their silly edit. Claiming that they couldn’t erase Ngannou’s legacy in the company, the Kiwi simply said that the streets will always remember the former heavyweight champion.

“You can’t erase Francis’ legacy in the UFC, it’s part of what we’ve done… trying not to talk about it is silly. I know there’s this competition between other promotions and the UFC but you can never erase history – the streets will always remember.”

While Izzy took a cheeky dig at the promotion for the flimsy act, he also mentioned that the UFC is smart and it will eventually realize its wrongdoing and act accordingly.