UFC 259: Here Are Israel Adesanya’s Only Losses in His Career

Israel Adesanya is set to make UFC history if he wins at UFC 259 against Jan Blachowicz. The 20-0 fighter, ‘Izzy’ looks set to become the promotion’s first undefeated ‘champ-champ’. This is a rather marvelous feat, especially when looking at the level of competition he’s faced in his UFC career alone.

However, Adesanya has tasted the sour sting of defeat, albeit never under the unified rules in MMA. The Nigerian-born fighter has had an illustrious combat sports career that has extended to kickboxing and professional boxing. While has did fall 6 times in those disciplines as a collective, Adesanya’s overall competitive appearances are something to marvel at.

Israel Adesanya: Life-long combatant

‘The Last Stylebender’ comes in with a 75-5 pro kickboxing record and 5-1 record under the unified pro-boxing rules. The first time he ever faced defeat was in February 2014, when he lost a split decision to Canadian kickboxer, Simon Marcus. His next loss came in his very next fight against Belgian champion, Filip Verlinden. This was a fight he avenged immediately.

November 2014 continued to bring misfortune in the form of a pro boxing loss in his debut to Daniel Ammann from Australia. Up to this point, he had only ever lost on the scorecards, but this was about to change, eventually. Adesanya then lost next in 2016 when he met his rival, Alex Pereira, in a kickboxing match at Glory of Heroes 1.

‘The Last Stylebender’s loss to Pereira came via unanimous decision, however, when the two met again in March 2017, things changed. Adesanya was brutally KO’ed via a left high kick and was stopped for the first time by Pereira. The KO loss still stands as the only one he’s ever suffered thus far in his illustrious career.

Prior to the KO loss to Pereira, Adesanya dropped a unanimous decision to Dutch Kickboxer, Jason Wilnis. This skid marked the end of his kickboxing run that ended at 75-5 as mentioned earlier. He then moved into MMA and the rest as they say is history.

March 6, 2021, is his clear-cut opportunity to make history and continue his upward trajectory in MMA. Will ‘The Last Stylebender’ suffer his seventh defeat? Or will he become the UFC’s fifth simultaneous two-division champion?