Israel Adesanya receives purple belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, hopes to “choke somebody out”

The UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya is arguably one of the best tacticians in the sport today. He’s a knockout artist, who has also professionally competed in both kickboxing and boxing, before moving to MMA. Israel Adesanya currently holds the undefeated record of 20-0 in the sport, with 15 wins coming from knockouts.

Though the champ is yet to secure a submission victory in his career, that doesn’t mean he’s not capable of chocking someone out. The Last Stylebender recently received a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu from legend Andre Galvao which proves that the champ is lethal, both on feet and on the ground. After achieving the major milestone in his career, Israel Adesanya claimed that he wants his future opponents to try and take him down so that he can secure a chokehold.

“I hope they start shooting on me more because I want to choke somebody out. People were shooting on me at the beginning, and then they realized, ‘We can’t be doing that, f**k it let’s strike, oh we can’t do that either,” Adesanya told MMA Fighting.

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Apart from being the middleweight king, Adesanya also has the second-best marks for takedown defence in the 185 division history, stopping 85.7 percent of his opponents’ attempts. At UFC 248, Adesanya faced and defeated Olympic freestyle wrestling silver medallist Yoel Romero. In five rounds, Adesanya thwarted three takedown attempts, shocking everyone with his skills.

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Not just that, at UFC 236, The Last Stylebender went down only once but managed to stop Kelvin Gastelum eight times. Eventually, Adesanya won the fight by unanimous decision (48–46, 48–46, 48–46), winning the interim belt in the process. He later went on to unify the belt by defeating champion Robert Whittaker at UFC 243.

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Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: What’s next for The Last Stylebender

Israel Adesanya is scheduled to move up the light heavyweight division to fight champ Jan Blachowicz next year. Blachowicz is expected to give Adesanya is the biggest challenge yet, considering his dominant performances against Dominick Reyes, Luke Rockhold and others. However, Israel Adesanya claims that he’ll be ready for Blachowicz by the times comes and deliver yet another classic. “Same sh*t. Go in there, establish my dominance, my range, my energy and pick them apart until they fall – or they get slept,” he added.

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Image Source: Israel Adesanya/ Instagram