Adesanya keen to prove GOAT status News

Israel Adesanya says he wants to prove his status as the greatest of all time when he returns to the octagon against Joe Pyfer at UFC Fight Night 271 in Seattle on March 28.

The former two-time middleweight champion will enter the bout coming off three consecutive losses after a year away from competition, but insists he feels unstoppable ahead of his return.

Adesanya admitted he has something to prove to himself after never losing back-to-back fights prior to his last three outings.

“I always feel like I have something to prove. And to myself, right now, what I’m proving to myself, or the story that I’m telling myself, that I’m writing is after a year off and doing all the stuff I was doing outside the game, being successful in other avenues, how am I going to come back after a year off that I’ve never done before and then like shock the world, shock people,” Adesanya said on his YouTube channel.

“What I want to do in this fight is make people go like, ‘Ah, he’s the man. He’s the GOAT.’ Like I want people to realise like f*ck, he’s that good even after a year off, after he’s down three fights now in the skid.”

The Nigerian-born fighter, who will face the No. 14 ranked Pyfer, promised to showcase skills he has never displayed before.

“It’s one of those things that I just have to go in there and show them. I want to shine. That’s the thing, I always want to shine, and I will shine. I can’t wait. But again, I know what I can do, and I feel like people haven’t seen my full array of skills yet. I just want to show off a lot of skills that I haven’t showed off yet,” he continued.

“So, in these fights, not that I’m going to be looking for them, but you’ll see. You’ll see me do things I’ve never done before because I feel like they’ll be presented to me.”

The 36-year-old will enter his bout against Pyfer as the betting underdog for the first time in his professional career, but says he feels different heading into the fight.

“I don’t know. I just feel really good. Like, it’s different now,” he said. “I just feel unstoppable. I really feel unstoppable because everything I’ve done this for, for this moment in my life. Everything I’ve done in this game has been for this moment in my life now. And now that it’s here, it’s like f*ck, I just feel I can’t be f*cked with.”

Adesanya has previously dismissed the idea of switching to boxing despite his reputation as one of the greatest strikers in mixed martial arts, and has also criticised the current state of the UFC middleweight division, describing it as bland compared to when he was champion.

The Last Stylebender holds the record for the second-longest winning streak in middleweight division history behind Anderson Silva, with his professional record standing at 24-5 with 16 knockout victories.