Israel Adesanya explains why he thinks he may have been underappreciated

UFC star Israel Adesanya has spoken about the run he had as middleweight champion in the promotion.

This weekend, Israel Adesanya will return to action and will try to get himself back in the win column after a poor run of form recently. He will collide with Joe Pyfer, and at the age of 36, he is looking to prove that he still has what it takes to be a legitimate player in the middleweight division.

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Once upon a time, of course, Adesanya was the king at 185 pounds, ruling over the division with an iron fist. Nowadays, the champion is Khamzat Chimaev, and he will defend that strap against Sean Strickland later this year.

Ahead of his comeback, Adesanya had the folowing to say about being an active champion at the elite level.

Adesanya talks about being underappreciated

“Look at the middleweight division now,” Adesanya told ESPN MMA. “Khamzat (Chimaev) was a very active guy coming up, smoking everybody, fighting multiple times, sometimes twice in a month, even at one point. And now that he’s champion, I’m not sure what the deal is. Is it VISA issues? Injuries? I’m not sure, but now he’s got a fight coming up. You know, the last active champion was me.

“The last guy who put it on the line, regardless, called out the best, was me. So yeah, that’s one thing I can say that people didn’t appreciate until – even I didn’t appreciate until now that I’m here watching it, and I’m like, ‘Damn. This game is slow and just stuck without me.’ That, and I’m sure there’s other things as well, but that’s one thing I can say that people didn’t appreciate, even I might not have appreciated, was how active I was and how much I gave to the game while I was holding the belt.”

Quotes via MMA Junkie

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