Israel Adesanya is the man of the hour! After a long road to redemption, Izzy finally reclaimed his title after beating Alex Pereira at UFC 287. As such, Adesanya now becomes a two-time UFC middleweight champion.
On the night, Adesanya showed a lot of initiative and intent, taking the fight to Pereira. Ahead of the fight, there was a lot of trash talk, dog collars, and whatnot involved in the back and forth. However, inside the Octagon Adesanya was able to step in and do the business.
Thus, The Last Stylebender scored a thunderous knockout of Alex Pereira at UFC 287, getting his revenge and settling the tie, for now. Further, in his post-fight press conference, Adesanya mentioned a mystery fighter in the middleweight division that he has his eyes on, but he needs to put in work to warrant a showdown. As such, it has begged the question? Who does Adesanya fight next?
Naturally, after his win, there were a lot of names congratulating him. However, there were also a lot of names putting themselves forward for a fight against Izzy as well. Notably, Khamzat Chimaev, Robert Whittaker, and Jan Blachowicz all sent a callout to Adesanya after his victory. Despite that, another name linked with Izzy is a potential fight against the light heavyweight champ, Jamahal Hill.
Is Israel Adesanya fighting Jamahal Hill next?
Following the conclusion of UFC 287, there was a lot of buzz in the fight world. With Izzy effectively settling the tie against Pereira, fight fans cooked up all sorts of theories as to who should fight who next. One common instance that many people were eventually coming to was a showdown between Israel and Jamahal Hill. Previously, Jamahal Hill claimed the vacant light heavyweight title after a brutal back-and-forth with Glover Teixeira at UFC 283.
Since then, a fight between Hill and Jir Prochazka has been touted but hasn’t materialized due to the latter injury issues. Thus, people believe that Israel should once again challenge for the light heavyweight title, seeing that there are no clear fights for either him or Hill at the moment. However, Izzy failed his previous attempt to capture LHW gold. “He was supposed to smoke Jan too,” said one user.
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According to one user, “He’s (Izzy) beat literally the entire top 5, and there’s no clear cut contender. Perfect time for him to go up.” Another user added, “I think Izzy should move up to challenge Hill. In the meantime have pereira fight chimaev or whittaker for a title shot”. Thus with many touting a move up for Pereira before the fight, Jamahal believes that he would dominate Pereira at 205. However, with Izzy, it could be a different matter entirely.
Thus, it remains to be seen what the UFC matchmakers cook up next. For sure, a fight between Izzy and Hill would be one of the biggest fights of the year. Moreover, with no clear challengers for either champion, it could be the ideal push Izzy needs for his double champ aspirations. Will it actually happen? Only time will tell.
