THE IZZY SHOW

HE’S A SUPERSTAR IN MMA AND A CHAMPION IN THE UFC—YET THAT’S ONLY HALF OF ISRAEL ADESANYA’S STORY. THE OTHER HALF CAN BE TOLD THROUGH HIS INCREDIBLE BODY OF WORK

- Chuck Mindenhall

At 6-foot-4, Israel Adesanya is built like a hallucination—like a long shadow come to life off the wall. He is an angular uprush of energy and power, made up of sharp angles and eye tricks. He can snipe people from great distances and kick a tea saucer off a forehead in one rapid movement. His fight IQ might be the highest in mixed martial arts, as he anticipates (and counters) tendencies better than any other fighter going. In other words, he’s a natural for the cage.

And if you didn’t know any better, you’d swear that everything that’s happened to Izzy in the three years he’s dominated the UFC has been carefully premeditated. It started in his first fight with Rob Wilkinson in Perth, Australia, in early 2018, when Adesanya lifted a leg and (symbolically) marked his territory all over the UFC’s Octagon before and after the fight.

What the hell was he doing? He was getting in front of the temptation at the time, that’s what. Having already been an outspoken kickboxing champion before his MMA career, people wanted to compare him to fighters like Anderson Silva or Conor McGregor, UFC superstars who could properly orient the senses to the kind of transcendent talent he was. Adesanya wasn’t having it. Everything he was could be found within the 80-inch wingspan that stretched between the first Izzy Adesanya and the “Last Stylebender.”