The Bottom Line: Untapped Potential

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There has been a remarkable consistency to Israel Adesanya’s game over the course of his Ultimate Fighting Championship career. That’s not to say he doesn’t have his better and worse performances. Sometimes he will showcase his elegant striking prowess with a spectacular dismantling of his opponents while other times he will end up in cautious extended stalemates in which neither man is scoring all that much in the way of offense. However, the basic makeup of the fighter and the man has remained more or less the same. He’s a smart, athletically gifted sniper who likes to counterstrike and will take advantage of opponents’ mistakes. He has gotten better at his craft but he hasn’t changed his approach.

That isn’t as common in MMA as one might think. It’s a sport that lends itself to transformation. Anderson Silva, the fighter Adesanya is most often compared to, went from getting submitted by the likes of Daiju Takase and Ryo Chonan to never getting submitted again and scoring some of his most memorable wins via tapout. Kamaru Usman went from years of grinding takedowns to treating Jorge Masvidal’s head like Randy Johnson treats birds.

Meanwhile, Adesanya, in 24 MMA bouts, still has no submission wins (or losses). He has occasionally been taken down, and that cost him in his only loss, but he’s good at avoiding danger on the ground and usually capitalizes when he’s back on his feet. Standing, even against opponents he’s much more skilled than, he’s always defensively minded and won’t leave himself vulnerable going for a highlight-reel finish. Adesanya has honed a very successful formula, and he sticks to it.

This isn’t a knock on Adesanya. His consistency has been central to his success, and it’s intelligent given his style. Challengers like Robert Whittaker and Paulo Costa may try to strike with him, but Adesanya is confident in his ability to better them in that game, regardless of how well they do against other opponents. For the fighters who try to take Adesanya down, he tries to punish them in their attempts and use up their energy in the attempts. Adesanya is reactive to what he is given.

What makes Alex Pereira such a compelling opponent for “The Last Stylebender” in the UFC 281 main event—it is a big part of why the promotion fast tracked him towards a title shot—is that he challenges Adesanya’s approach in a way no other opponent has. As such, we are likely to learn a lot about Adesanya in the way he approaches the fight and how he does with that approach. That’s an exciting possibility for a fighter who is now deep into a hall-of-fame career.

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Adesanya certainly could win a striking battle against Pereira. He had Pereira in major trouble in their second kickboxing bout. Still, this is ultimately an opponent that defeated Adesanya twice and knocked him out the second time. It’s also an opponent who has been training in MMA for much less time than Adesanya and likely has significantly more vulnerabilities in the ground games. It’s very much an open question whether Adesanya is better off striking with Pereira or trying to ground the man. It’s also a question whether Adesanya will switch approaches if the fight isn’t going as he expects.

Adesanya is a proud fighter, but he has never let that affect his in fight strategy. It could be argued his only loss was in significant part pride thinking he could move up 20 pounds in weight class without putting on significant mass, but his approach to the fight itself was hardly imprudent. If there’s any fight in Adesanya’s UFC career where his pride has the most potential to work against him, it’s this one. It’s the only fight where he can avenge a previous loss and where there’s doubt about whether his opponent is better than him at what he does best.

It appears Pereira is trying to bait Adesanya into making mistakes, talking trash and accusing him of not wanting to fight. Pereira wants a macho Adesanya not fighting tactically. He wants another Sean Strickland moving right into the pocket and swinging. Even if Adesanya doesn’t attempt to take the fight to the ground, Pereira, with his offensive tools and brutal knockout power, benefits from a more aggressive, wide-open fight. Like Adesanya for pretty much all of his UFC career, we know what sort of fight Pereira wants. This time, it’s Adesanya who might throw in some surprising wrinkles, or he might not, which would still be a telling development given the opponent in and of itself.

If Adesanya gets past Pereira successfully, it will be back to the same basic dynamics when it comes to his next opponent, whoever that ends up being. Pereira isn’t necessarily the biggest challenge for Adesanya—although he’s a bigger one than most—but he’s the one most likely to bring something different and unusual out of the champion. That’s an exciting prospect.