Israel Adesanya announces UFC return

By Christopher Reive

Israel Adesanya has announced his return.

While yet to be officially confirmed by the UFC, Adesanya announced on social media that he would be back in the octagon to challenge Dricus du Plessis for the middleweight title at UFC 305 in Perth in August.

The bout has been the topic of conversation in mixed martial arts for months, with indications that the UFC wanted to book it as the headline fight when the Perth pay-per-view event was confirmed back in March.

With all other top contenders in the division being booked in other match-ups, and some openly talking about the fight between Adesanya and du Plessis, it seemed only a matter of time before there would be some form of confirmation of the fight.

Late last month, du Plessis posted on social media noting he had agreed to the location and opponent for his first title defence since dethroning Sean Strickland in January and was unsure why the fight hadn’t been announced.

Last night, Adesanya shared a poster on his social media platforms that included “UFC 305. Du Plessis vs. Adesanya. August 17″ on it.

Adesanya hasn’t fought since losing the title to Strickland in September last year, taking time to get healthy and assess where he’s at in his career; making changes to his lifestyle in order to optimise the remainder of his career.

“I’m about to be 35 next month and I realise, Father Time wins. You can’t beat Father Time, so you have to optimise yourself and I have been doing that now,” Adesanya said on his YouTube channel Freestylebender.

“[I’ve been doing] I guess you’d call it a preseason in rugby; you get ready for the actual camp itself. Before, it was a little bit freestyle on my end. I’d be training with the lads so I’m still in shape, even if I f****d off somewhere and came back and I wasn’t in shape, it wouldn’t take me too long to get in shape. But I’d rather be really diligent with the way I prepare for these fights.

“I want to close the show nicely. I’m past the halfway point so the next few years I want to close the show nicely. We’re doing that so far.”

Fellow Kiwis Dan Hooker and Kai Kara-France have also indicated they will be fighting on the card, which is expected to be loaded with talent from Australia and New Zealand.

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission