Israel Adesanya Doesn’t Want Protecting: ‘I’m Ready To Kick The Door Down So Let’s Go All In Son’

Israel Adesanya made a big splash in his promotional debut at UFC 221 with his outstanding display of striking against Rob Wilkinson.

The 28-year-old bagged himself a performance of the night bonus with this second round TKO and has since lit up the media putting every man fighting at 185-pounds on notice. 10 days departed from his win in Perth, Australia, Adesanya spoke to MMANytt.com about his debut and he promised that things would only be getting better.

“This what I’ve been planning for all along,” Adesanya said. My plan from the get-go was to be an international prize fighter and part of that is having to deal with media and people and all that. For me, I just make sure I keep the same energy.

“I evolve, but I keep the same energy and my spirit stays the same. Ain’t nothing changing, but the change, and that’s all good for us.”

Champions are made in the gym

While the media attention since the fight has been plentiful, Adesanya isn’t getting carried away with himself. As soon as the fight was done he was back in the gym getting ready for his next fight which he hopes will come about in the next two months.

“I enjoyed myself last week and I’ve been at the gym since,” Adesanya said. “Now it’s Monday and I’m still working my a** off. Everything has been nice and this and that, even when I had my press after the fight and when like 12 cameras came to the gym, people were just waiting to hear what I had to say next and I told them ‘look, this is all nice and stuff. You have a job to do and I have a job to do, I’ll be your media darling, but I just take this all with a grain of salt.’

“This is where the bread is made, the bread is made in the gym and I wanna stack bread like sliced bread.”

Ready for any challenges

Adesanya built up an MMA record of 11-0 before debuting in the UFC, has already had nearly 100 professional combat sports fights with his boxing, kick boxing, Muay Thai and MMA careers combined. His journey prior to the UFC was lengthy, but he feels it’s put him in a position now to compete with the best in the world from the outset.

“That’s why we took so long to get to the UFC. We took our time coming to the UFC because we wanted to make sure that if they gave us a top-15 or top-10 or even top-5 straight away, that I would be ready. We wanted to make sure that I could take on anyone in the world.

“All these other people coming from ‘Looking for a Fight’ and they jump in the UFC after 3 or 4 fights, some of them do well, some of them don’t. Before you swim in the depths of the ocean you got to make sure you can swim with sharks. The difference is I don’t just swim with the sharks, I eat them and that’s what I’m about to do.”

You haven’t see anything yet

With his confidence sky high and with an eagerness to get back into the Octagon as quickly as possible, Adesanya has to be seen as a big threat at 185-pounds. The Nigerian-born man promises that he’s yet to show UFC fans a fraction of what he has to offer and that he doesn’t want protecting from any fighting style or potential opponent.

“This is all stuff I’ve prepared for and planned for,” Adesanya said. “This feels like déjà vu and I’m just waiting. Don’t protect me, I don’t need it. I’m ready to kick the door down so let’s go all in son.

“Look at my stand up last week, that was just me testing the waters and picking him apart. I didn’t even show 3% of what I could do. That’s just my stand up alone and people haven’t even seen my grappling yet. People always just say the same thing ‘wait until he fights a good wrestler… blah blah blah.’ Well find someone who can keep me down long enough and I’ll show you guys what I can do.”