UFC Middleweight Champion Israel Adesanya has weighed in on Jiri Prochazka vs Glover Teixeira. The main event of UFC 275 saw then-champ Glover Teixeira defending his light-heavyweight title against Jiri Prochazka. Although the champ was in an advantageous position heading into the last round of the fight, one mistake ultimately cost him the fight.
In the early minutes of round 5, Glover landed a huge overhand right on Jiri. The punch was so heavy that it almost knocked Jiri out on his feet. However, Glover made perhaps the biggest mistake of his career in the next second. Instead of using his punches to put Prochazaka’s lights out, Teixeira jumped in to lock in a guillotine choke.
Unfortunately, the 42-year-old slipped and Jiri’s head popped out of the submission hold. It led to the Cezch fighter falling on top of Teixeira, which allowed him the time to recover. In the following minutes, Jiri Prochazka hurt Glover and finished him off with a rear-naked choke. During an interview with his brother David Adesanya on his YouTube channel, Israel Adesanya spoke of Teixeira’s mistake. He said,
“He has landed that (guillotine choke) many time. But he just did it at the wrong time, later on in the fight… and he was winning on the cards. He’s sweaty. (But) he’s trying to finish the fight like a real fu**ing fighter does. He’s trying to finish the fight, which is good. But that cost him the fight… yeah, he just didn’t lock it up properly and he was sweaty and a bad judgement call on his part.”
Is Israel Adesanya heading to light-heavyweight after UFC 276?
Israel Adesanya has already dipped his toes on in the light-heavyweight division. He moved to the 205lbs to challenge Jan Blachowics for the belt after Jon Jones’ exodus from the division. Although it was a relatively competitive fight, Blachowicz ultimately neutralized all of Izzy’s weapons and dragged him to the mat where Adesanya is not as lethal.
On top of that, Adesanya also looked severely undersized during that contest. Hence, there was always curiosity regarding his future in the 205lbs division. Will he ever fight at light-heavyweight once again? Stylebender also commented on that during the video. Although he has not ruled out the possibility, Adesanya wants to stay at 185lbs for the time being and be the dominant champion that he is at the moment.
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He may potentially face Alex Pereira as the winner of Pereira vs Sean Strickland is tapped to be the next in line for the belt. Hence, Izzy has a lot of exciting options in the middleweight division. His old opponents Robert Whittaker and Marvin Vettori will also face each other in the upcoming UFC Paris event. The winner there may also find their way to fight Adesanya one more time.
Do you think Adesanya will stick around in the middleweight division beyond 2023? If he does, do you think he will look to break Anderson Silva’s record of middleweight title defences? Let us know in the comments down below.