Israel Adesanya Beats Paulo Costa to Retain UFC middleweight championship

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Israel Adesanya put on a clinic against previously undefeated contender Paulo Costa. Adesanya made a statement and proved all his doubters wrong, landing a devastating head kick and a sneaky right hand to drop Costa in the second round. Referee Jason Herzog stopped the fight immediately.

After the win he tweeted: “Imagine if I was taunting as much as Costa after all that shit he was talking… The amount of shit I would cop from the internets hahaha. I’m still in the air, I ain’t even started yet. He had all the preflight memes. I’m gonna go in on his ass…oh wait”

A former kickboxer, Adesanya is unique. He was born in Lagos, Nigeria and is based in New Zealand. Still the reigning UFC middleweight champion, “The Last Stylebender” is undefeated in his MMA career.

Izzy trained taekwondo when he was young but his mother decided to stop taking him to class after he broke his arm. Adesanya eventually moved to New Zealand and started training in kickboxing at age 18. He even moved to China before returning to New Zealand and at 21 years old he began to train at City Kickboxing, with fighters like Kia Kara-France and Dan Hooker.

Adesanya began his professional career in 2012 and he was 11-0 with 11 TKOs in fights in New Zealand, Australia and China. He signed with the UFC in December 2017 and he made his debut at UFC 221, knocking out Rob Wilkinson in the second round. He is 9-0 in the UFC, with wins against Derek Brunson, Anderson Silva, Kelvin Gastelum, Robert Whittaker, Yoel Romero and Costa.

 

Born: July 22nd, 1989

Age: 31

Country: Nigeria

Height: 6’4″

Weight: 185 lbs

Reach: 80″

Stance: Switch

Association: City Kickboxing

Class: Middleweight

Record: 20-0

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