Israel Adesanya exclusive: Paulo Costa and UFC 253 the next challenge on road to legacy - 'I’m practising patience ... there’s still a long way to go'

Unbeaten middleweight champion arrives in Abu Dhabi for Fight Island aiming to defend his title and take another step toward his goals of greatness

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  UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya trains in his hotel room in Abu Dhabi ahead of his title defence against Paulo Costa at UFC 253, which opens Fight Island 2 in the capital on September 27. Jeff Sainlar - EMG

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  Israel Adesanya takes a break from training in his hotel room in Abu Dhabi. Jeff Sainlar - EMG

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  Israel Adesanya trains in his hotel room in Abu Dhabi. Jeff Sainlar - EMG

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  Israel Adesanya trains in his hotel room in Abu Dhabi. Jeff Sainlar - EMG

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  UFC champion Israel Adesanya arrives in Abu Dhabi from Las Vegas. Courtesy Etihad

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  Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya puts his title on the line against Paulo Costa in the main event at UFC 253. AP Photo

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  Israel Adesanya will put his middleweight title on the line against Paulo Costa at UFC 253 in Abu Dhabi. AP Photo

For Israel Adesanya, what from the outside seemed a perfectly cordial chance meet with Paulo Costa at their Abu Dhabi hotel only cemented what he feels inside.

Chiefly, that come Sunday, his opponent will crumble under the lights on Fight Island.

"I kind of expected it a little bit," Adesanya tells The National of the run-in, captured on video and sent out across social media at the weekend, when the pair bumped into one another and apparently shared a joke about Costa's weight.

Perhaps, though, it wasn't so genial, after all.

"I could sense it,” Adesanya says. “I put up a story on my Instagram and it showed you what really happened. He walked by me, I stared him down and he goes, ‘You good?’, and I replied, ‘I’m great’. He said something and I doubled back and went over there to size him up.

“I had he and his manager giggling like little girls. I gave him an opportunity to say what he really wanted to say. It just confirmed what I already knew: without no crowd, without no TV cameras, he doesn’t keep the same energy. I do."

In a protracted and often profane build-up to the headline act at UFC 253, a middleweight title bout that kicks off Fight Island 2, the mental warfare continues.

“He submitted to me," Adesanya, the current champion, says. "It confirmed to me that he’s my son; I son-ed him. And I had them, ‘Hey we’ll be nice, we’ll be nice’ as I approached them.

“I shook his hand, tapped him on the shoulder - all these things are a strategy because I was feeling him out, seeing the pressure of his handshake. And I could see that he’s not about that life.”

Recounting the story from his hotel room at the W Abu Dhabi – Yas Island, a few days out from another mighty test in a thus-far meteoric rise through the UFC, Adesanya is playing it as cool as a desert night.

Some say Costa represents the greatest challenge to his unbeaten record, built latterly in Adesanya’s two and a half years in the promotion. Yet, outwardly at least, he doesn’t seem too perturbed.

“I’m practising patience,” he says. “There’s no point in getting excited. That’s why when I saw him, I wanted him to feel me so I rocked up to him, doubled back to him.

“I was hoping he’d do something, because he’s been the one beating his chest at every fight of mine. I wanted to see if he kept the same energy, but he didn’t. So I stayed cool, calm and collected. Like the killer that I am.”

Adesanya's CV certainly speaks to that. Having carved a stellar career in kickboxing – he won 75 of his 80 bouts through China, New Zealand and beyond - the Nigerian-born athlete joined the UFC in December 2017 and, within two months, had a debut victory.

Seven more wins have followed. Achievements have flown with the time: interim champion; 2019’s Fight of the Year, against Kevin Gastelum; four Performance of the Night bonuses, two for Fight of the Night. In all, he has seen off six top-15 fighters.

Last October, Adesanya took out then-champion Robert Whittaker in spectacular fashion in front of almost 60,000 people in Melbourne.

Still, and will typical belt-holder bravado, he stresses he hasn’t exceeded his own expectations.

“Not even close,” Adesanya says. “I feel like I’m almost halfway to what I’m achieving in this game, when I’m talking about legacy-wise. But there’s still a long way to go.”

Sunday's showdown with Costa is another step towards that. The clash brings together two undefeated fighters - Adesanya stands at 19-0 in professional mixed martial arts, Costa 13-0 - only the second time in UFC history that unbeaten rivals face off for the title. That only other example was in 2009.

Little wonder, then, that UFC president Dana White has declared this will be Fight of the Year in an already memorable 2020, both inside and outside the octagon.

Adesanya, though, doesn’t necessarily agree.

“To be honest, his toughness is probably what’s going to make it fight of the year, if he can somehow withstand the beating I’m going to put on him," he says. "But I don’t think he can. I don’t think his gas tank will let him. That’s why I don’t really think it’s going to be fight of the year. But it’s going be a domination of the year and knockout of the year.

“[His style] is tailor made for me. I just watched '[UFC 253] Countdown' this morning and I can he has a whole team around him, just a bunch of ‘Yes men’ around him that blow smoke up his ass.

“He hasn’t been – I hate this word so much because people try to use it about me – humbled properly. Like I have with my teammates, my killers that I work with. Every single day is a struggle, especially with this lockdown that we had at the gym, because everybody was levelling up. So I just don’t see it going past the fourth round.”

That said, Costa looms large, both literally and figuratively. The hulking Brazilian has blazed his own trail through the UFC, with four of his five wins coming by technical knockout. Last time out, against Yoel Romero in August 2019, Costa was pushed to a decision. It sits as his only three-round encounter; Sunday's championship bout could go five.

As he is wise to do, Adesanya remains respectful of Costa's raw power.

“Exactly,” he says. “You have to be confident, but you have to understand the task at hand. You can’t sleep on anyone or you get slept. And I feel he’s sleeping on me; he’s thinking he’s just going to walk through my shots, but I take this fight seriously and he better be.

“But I don’t think he is. I think he really believes he’s just going to walk through me. But he’s going to be in when he walks into one of my shots. It’s a clichéd thing to say: there’s levels to this and I’m going display it Sunday.”

The consensus is Adesanya didn't exhibit his true talent in his most recent outing. February's points-victory against Romero was hugely disappointing, an eagerly anticipated contest dimmed significantly by a sizeable lack of activity. It prompted heavy criticism from fans and media.

Seven months on, Adesanya is keen to consign it to memory, to prove it was merely a bump on what he perceives his road to greatness.

“A little bit,” he says. “Not the fight itself, but the way people talk about, ‘All he does is run away. He’s scared’. And I’m like, ‘You dumb [expletive] have a short memory. Like, really? I’m scared? Me?

“So, yeah, I feel like Roy Jones Jr when he said, ‘Y’all must’ve forgot’. I kind of need to let people know and remind them. [Sunday] is good for especially the casuals, and there’s heaps of them.

“It boosts my stock heavily because of the look of it: the skinny clown, which is myself, whoops this overly inflated balloon animal, this juiced-up monkey. I do that and people go, ‘Wow, skinny guy beat muscly guy. Oh my god, he’s so good’. People are stupid like that. So I look forward to this weekend and letting the stock climb.”

Win spectacularly, and his standing within the game undeniably does that. The Fight Island component simply adds another layer to the intrigue: the pared-back feel, the no crowd and the intimacy the whole concept engenders.

Adesanya watched the inaugural run in July - "it was beautiful; I liked the vibe" - and says the glitz and the glamour all around on Yas Island is slowly sinking in. His hotel room overlooks Yas Marina Circuit, a pretty hefty detachment from his training camp at City Kickboxing back in Auckland, where he spent more than two weeks living and sleeping. Speaking of shuteye, that hasn't been interrupted by the racecars whizzing around the track below him.

"The first night was crazy," Adesanya says. "But I can sleep through anything, so it was nothing for me.”

He has visited the UAE before, stopping over in Dubai last year on his way back from Nigeria following the Gastelum triumph. His management company, Paradigm Sports Management, has just set-up base in the emirate, where Azhar Muhammad Saul, senior vice president of strategy and business development, heads their global push.

It means the Middle East could soon become the latest territory for Adesanya to expand his Puma-shaped footprint (last week, he became the first MMA fighter to land sponsorship deal with the sports manufacturer).

“It was cool to mix and mingle with the people of the land,” Adesanya says of his Dubai trip. “It was awesome. There’s a lot of potential here, not just through fighting, but in other avenues and in life.

“A lot of good relationships can be built here - I’ve already started that in my own sense. But once I dominate this weekend I feel like the doors can open for me on this side of the world.”

That relationship appears reciprocal. Adesanya has always figured highly in fighters Abu Dhabi wished to attract, “The Last Stylebender" often featuring among the first in potential match-ups to be made since the capital signed a five-year agreement with the UFC last year.

Put to him now, Adesanya acknowledges the love.

“It makes me feel good because it shows they believe in what I’m doing, believe in my style, my skill, my presentation of myself and how I conduct myself,” he says.

“Especially on this side of the world where things are sometimes a little bit reserved, and with a guy like me who’s not as reserved, they’re still welcoming me and want me. It shows they understand what I’m doing and what I’m getting done.”

At the moment, getting it done at UFC 253 is foremost on his mind. Doing so on fresh, Fight-Island terrain only adds to the focus.

“Yeah, 100 per cent,” he says. “I like the idea I get to fight on a private island, in front of these billionaires like some dark-web fight club. It’s going to be dope. And the world streams it and watches me body this guy.

“This weekend I can promise you violence. I’m the only one going to be moving back and moonwalking and stabbing him with my fists. There’s no going back in that sense. I’m here. I’m taking him out.”