Israel Adesanya is almost ready to return to the Octagon.
Adesanya (24-5 MMA, 13-5 UFC) suffered his third straight defeat in February, when he was stopped by Nassourdine Imavov in the main event of UFC Saudi Arabia. Before that, “The Last Stylebender” dropped back-to-back title fights against Sean Strickland and Dricus Du Plessis.
The former UFC middleweight champion’s most recent victory came at UFC 287, almost two and a half years ago, when he knocked out Alex Pereira.
Now, in the midst of the longest losing streak of his career, Adesanya is preparing for a comeback, according to his coach, Eugene Bareman.
“Izzy, right now, had basically the start of the year off (after the Imavov loss), and he has come back into training in the last couple of months,” Bareman told Submission Radio. “He’s training regularly, so he’s training every day, twice a day. And he needs to prepare his mind and body for a potential fight at the end of this year, and so that’s what he’s doing.”
Having lost four of his last five fights, speculation had begun to mount that Adesanya might be tempted to retire, but Bareman insists that the 36-year-old is still hungry to compete.
“As far as opponents, I don’t know,” Bareman said. “Izzy’s got a couple more in him, just give him a fun fight. Give him something exciting. Give him something fun. I haven’t really thought about specific names, (we should) leave it to the fans, I guess.”
Adesanya was dethroned as middleweight champion two years ago when Sean Strickland outpointed him over 25 minutes at UFC 293. When asked if the City Kickboxing team would consider running it back against Strickland, Bareman agreed.
“I think naturally as a fighter, Izzy wants to get that one back,” Bareman explained. “I think that’s just natural. He knows Sean got the better of him, you can’t take nothing away from Sean that night. But I think Izzy, or us as a team, feel that we can definitely put on a better performance against Strickland. But that was his night. Sean got the job done… and he held the title for a little bit, and that was his night.”
