Israel Adesanya is a Nigerian-born, New Zealand-based professional mixed martial artist. He was born on 22 July 1989 and is one of the few people that have competed in kickboxing and boxing. Before taking up fighting, Adesanya regularly competed in dance competitions across New Zealand.
Adesanya is one of those people we know about but don’t really know anything about him. Today. We look at 8 things about the mixed martial artist.
Adesanya is currently signed to the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), where he is the UFC Middleweight Champion and has an undefeated record of 19 wins and no losses. In kickboxing, he is the former Glory middleweight contender winner and King in the Ring two-time cruiserweight and heavyweight champion. As of 24 May 2020, he is #4 in the UFC men’s pound-for-pound rankings. Adesanya is often regarded as one of the best strikers in the world of mixed martial arts as well as one of the best in sport’s history.
Israel Adesanya was born in Lagos, Nigeria to a family of five children. His father, Femi, is an accountant and his mother, Taiwo, is a nurse. Israel attended Chrisland School, Opebi, and enrolled in its Taekwondo after-school club until he was removed by his mother due to an injury. In early 2001, he relocated to Ghana with his family for 10 months, but due to his parents wanting their children to receive a well-recognized higher education, he settled in Rotorua, New Zealand at age 10 and attended Rotorua Boys’ High School.
Adesanya was initially not interested in the sport during high school; instead, he was interested in Japanese anime such as Death Note and Naruto. He would like to start an anime production company after retiring from fighting. His nickname “The Last Stylebender” is a reference to Avatar: The Last Airbender, an anime-influenced cartoon series. Adesanya has the image of one of the show’s main characters, Toph Beifong, tattooed on his forearm.
He was heavily bullied during his high school years and attributes the mistreatment he experienced to his decision to pursue martial arts later in life. 5. We hear people who are motivated by several things, Adesanya, at the age of 18, started training in kickboxing, after being inspired by the Muay Thai film Ong-Bak.
In March 2014, Adesanya became the first New Zealander to sign a deal with the Glory promotion company after he spent the past previous six months in China fighting full-time. He lost a unanimous points decision in his debut fight to Belgian Filip Verlinden at Glory 15 in Istanbul, Turkey. It was only his second loss of the then 24-year-old’s career.
Adesanya made his professional debut in 2012. Fighting in Hong Kong, Australia, and China over the next five-and-a-half years, he amassed a record of 11–0, with all wins coming via KO/TKO, prior to being signed by the UFC.
Adesanya remains undefeated in his career.
