His descent started at 32 so he can’t blame age.
Never that good? Figured out? Unlucky? Or the game just passed him by?
I remember having to watch that bullshit ad with Israel on every commercial break of every event “I’m the GOAT… and it’s mind blowing” 
Those Pereira fights probably took something out of him
I was thinking that as well. Pereira’s presence in the UFC itself drained Izzy’s soul, took his shine.
Hate to say “Never that good” but I do feel his reign consisted of good matchups and B opponents.
He looks run down, too many miles in the ring/octagon. Looked like he was fighting in quick sand today. Super slow.
Maybe it’s drug testing? Who can forget his weird man boobs?
just stupid people think theyre the goat sometimes, while everybody else is laughing at them.
He has a lot of rough training sessions too. Those guys beat the shit out of each other.
Came along at the right time in the division. Anderson who was 40% of what he used to be had a VERY close fight with him.
He went life and death with Kelvin Gastelum. He beat Whittaker after he went through a blender
Twice with Romero. He beat Romero but not really impressively. Romero can literally go out there and just give an entire fight away, where he is the one that does all the damage, it’s weird.
Whittaker had a short run where he was burning bright and basically burned his career at the top fighting Romero, so it was perfect timing to lose to newest guy on the way up in the division. Never mind the million surgeries and getting staph in his stomach too.
Whittaker and Stylebender actually have very similar results against the same opponents.
His win against AP after 3 losses shows that cutting too much weight was bad for AP. They both went to 205 against boring Jan and Pereira beat him and Stylebender lost.
There’s a lot to that. He fucked himself up with whoever was coaching his PED use while
Trying to dodge drug testing. That can do A LOT of long term damage just based on confidence
Lost in training etc.
Adesanya also wanted to have his cool “I push the Ref away 'cause I’m a tough guy” moment - then gets KOed himself
He’d already had 100+ fights worth of mileage by that point though, and was trying to go up a weight class.
That Jan fight was the beginning of the 2nd half of his UFC career. Its interesting to look at the stats for how many strikes hes absorbed in the 2 halves.
First 9 UFC fights - 317
The 9 fights from the Jan fight to now - 696
Seems like a pretty clear case of a fighter declining to me. Especially taking into account that his game was heavily based around reflexes and elusiveness.
Like Vanderlei moving up to fight Hunt, his dominance never returned after fighting Jan at 205.
Israel Adesanya, like Jon Jones, is one of the key reasons I continue to watch MMA. Few things are as satisfying as seeing an arrogant cunt get laid out in the octagon, like Ronda Rousey getting a head kick and a 3-piece, or when Anderson Silva got KTFO while clowning. So I fucking hate that Jon Jones has never given me the same satisfaction but I’d like to give my warm thanks to Izzy for writing his name on the list.
Alex Pereira
I think Izzy may have been burned out in those losses to Alex and Strickland. He was very busy with fighting and promoting fights.
I think the other losses were just losses to better fighters. I’m not saying Alex and Stricklands wins should be diminished.
What about him? that hes older?
Sure, but hes also had like half as many fights and his style (being a big dude with murderous power) tends to age better than being a slick elusive type fighter.
Much older… just simply better than Israel, which is why he’s 3-1 against him.
Lol I saw you edited out the “more fights” part when you checked and saw that Izzy has had like twice as many fights as Poatan across MMA, kickboxing and boxing. Much more mileage, like I said, which is just as much of a factor as age, if not more so.
Is Poatan a better fighter? I guess so. Although there are some major caveats to it all. For one he was fast tracked in MMA and given stylistically favourable match ups, Izzy was not.
Still not buying your story about Israel losing because of being older. Dude started losing in his early 30’s. Suffered no major damage or injuries that lead to his downward spiral. We have Sambo fighters which is much more grueling on the the body with updwards of 100-200 fights before entering MMA with massive injuries that plagued them for years (like Khabib over 200 Sambo fights).
Alex made Israel question who he was in there and he went 1-4 since fighting him.
Actually, Israel’s inner bitch was on full display when he REFUSED to fight Alex again in the trilogy after hail mary KO’ing him while playing possum.
That’s when his career was over. He showed fear. Wanted to sit on a win to the better man.
