Israel Adesanya already looking forward to challenging Jon Jones in the UFC

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By Raza Kazi

Published Mar 16, 2019

Adesanya could soon hold championship gold in the UFC

To say Israel Adesanya has made a big impact during his stint in the UFC would be quite an understatement.

In February 2018, he marked his Octagon debut with a second-round TKO win over Rob Wilkinson. Fast forward one year, and The Last Stylebender picked up the biggest win of his perfect career after defeating Anderson Silva in Australia.

MIDDLEWEIGHT MIX

In what's going to be a quick turnaround, Adesanya will return to the Octagon in April and to keep his impeccable record intact, he'll have to get past the younger and dangerous Kelvin Gastelum to capture the interim middleweight championship.

Gastelum, Robert Whittaker and Yoel Romero are just some of the names that have been thrown around as potential opponents for Adesanya down the line.

Not only that, but both Chris Weidman and Paulo Costa have also come out to state that the middleweight championship challenger is overrated.

Despite that, Adesanya has remained confident. So much so, the former kickboxing sensation has already set his sights on light heavyweight king, Jon Jones.

A lot of fans have voiced their opinions on Adesanya and wanting him to fight genuine threats in the middleweight division, so a move up to fight Bones would be a huge threat.

Speaking to Submission Radio, Adesanya said the fight between Jones and Silva never came to fruition but he's looking forward to the challenge Jones brings.

CHALLENGE

According to BJPenn.com, he said: "Jones and [Anderson] Silva have spoken about fighting each other for years as well, but that never came to fruition.

"This I feel is different. So yeah, I look forward to that challenge as well.

“That shows you how serious they’re taking me, the smart ones, how much they know I’m a threat, how serious they’re taking me,” Adesanya said.

“Like, [Jones] mentioned it on fight week of 235 or whatever, and then I went back two weeks prior on messages with Eugene when I put the question out there, how are we going to beat Jon Jones? And he kind of just laid down the rough blueprint. And I blurred a lot of it out, but yeah, we’re focusing on Gastelum.”