Israel Adesanya almost fought twice in 2025. | Getty/UFC
If the stars had aligned, Israel Adesanya would have returned to the Octagon a little sooner than expected.The former middleweight champion will face Joe Pyfer in the UFC Seattle headliner on March 28 at Climate Pledge Arena. “The Last Stylebender” has been out of action since suffering a second-round technical knockout loss to Nassourdine Imavov at UFC Saudi Arabia last February.
On his YouTube channel, Adesanya revealed that he was prepared to accept a short-term booking against Reinier de Ridder in October before an injury suffered in training ruled him out.”Last year I was going to fight, but then I got injured in the gym, and then that opportunity was taken away. It was also a short fight. And I’ve never done a fight like that before, so that would have been exciting,” Adesanya said.
De Ridder was set to face fellow middleweight contender Anthony Hernandez in the UFC Vancouver main event before “Fluffy” withdrew from the event due to injury. Ultimately, it was Brendan Allen, not Adesanya, who stepped in to accept the assignment. Allen would go on to earn a fourth-round victory against the former two-division ONE Championship titleholder.
“RDR. Five weeks’ notice, six weeks’ notice,” Adesanya said. “I was already training, so I was getting ready for a fight. So it would have been like, ‘Okay, I’ve never done this before. You’re fit. Jump in.’ But then that moment was taken from me. But in hindsight that’s for the best. Even though I wasn’t happy with it at the time, it was for the best.”
The desire to shine
Instead, Adesanya will look to right the ship against Pyfer, a Dana White’s Contender Series alum who has the win in six of his seven Octagon appearances. Although Adesdanya has lost four of his last five fights, the passion to compete still burns strong in the Nigerian-born Kiwi.
“I want to shine,” Adesanya said. “That’s the thing, I always want to shine. And I will shine. So I can’t wait. I know what I can do, and I feel like people haven’t seen my full range of skills yet. I just want to show a lot of skills that I haven’t shown yet. So in these fights I’m not going to look for them, but you’ll see. You’ll see me do things that I’ve never done before because I feel like they’ll be presented to them.”
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