You will remember the viral video of Israel Adesanya purportedly involved in road rage earlier this year. We say purportedly because the actual video showed that it was in fact ‘Izzy’ who was subject to road rage by a guy who approached him and started cursing him out, only for the UFC superstar to refuse engaging and drive away in his car. And for good reason. After all, the Kiwi-Nigerian knows full well the dire, and at times, even lethal consequences of these types of instances.

On this day, twelve years ago, the former middleweight champion had broken his jaw because of a cowardly attack on him from his blindside in New Zealand. More significantly, the former UFC champ lost one of his friends and City Kickboxing gym teammate, Liufau ‘Fau’ Vake in 2021. In an eerily similar incident to the one that broke Adesanya’s jaw, the 25-year-old ‘Fau’ was attacked by a group of people from behind which eventually led to his death, prompting Adesanya to take a meaningful step to combat this type of social violence.

‘Fau’ was incredibly close to ‘Izzy’ and the rest of the City Kickboxing guys, which led to the former UFC champion, in conjunction with his coach, Eugene Bareman, founding the ‘Walk Without Fear Trust’ to combat the scourge of street violence and ‘one punch attacks’. To commemorate his breaking his jaw and to publicize the trust, Adesanya made an Instagram post which had an X-ray of his broken jaw with the caption: “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything. – Albert Einstein. @walkwithoutfeartrust 💙”

Bareman is the chairman of the trust and is determined to do his best to make a positive change in society and warn the public about the scourge of social violence. The CKB coach goes to schools, colleges, and on shows where they educate the public and students against the perils of such violence. Of course, he is often joined by his fighters, especially Israel Adesanya, in many of these events since the superstar’s words are likely to have more of an impact on kids and the general public. But the former UFC champ will probably be too busy for the next few months to attend any events and will be preparing for one of the most important fights of his career.

Israel Adesanya rumored to take on top-ranked middleweight in bounce-back fight

It seems almost strange to see Israel Adesanya not be the UFC’s middleweight champ. After all, ‘Izzy’ had dominated the division for the better part of four years after the GSP/Anderson Silva era. But the Kiwi-Nigerian lost his title in dramatic fashion to Sean Strickland last year, which was perhaps the biggest upset in the modern history of the UFC.

His efforts to wrest his title off of Dricus Du Plessis earlier this year also ended in disappointment, where he lost for the first time via submission to an RNC. Now the former champ will have to make his way up the division once again. And his next opponent en route to hopefully another title shot is reportedly going to be #5 ranked Nassourdine Imavov.

While nothing has been officially announced yet, ‘Izzy’ is reportedly set to face the Frenchman atop next year’s UFC Fight Night Saudi Arabia card in February 2025. Needless to say, this fight will be crucial for Adesanya’s title hopes since a win would mean he is right back in the title picture. A loss, however, would be dire and see him slide further down the ladder, making his road to another title shot much longer. What do you think about Adesanya’s message on social violence? Let us know in the comments below.