LAS VEGAS — Although he’s the UFC middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya still doesn’t feel like he is accepted by the UFC and the fans. Maybe it’s because he has spent his entire life feeling like an outcast. From his younger days in New Zealand, getting bullied as a “tall poppy” (one who stands out) for his different look and mannerisms to the “Broken Native” tattoo that is sprawled just beneath his collarbone, Adesanya has gotten used to being comfortable in uncomfortable situations.
Maybe that’s why he sought to defend his title against Yoel Romero at UFC 248 on March 7 at the T-Mobile Arena. The Cuban may have lost two fights in a row, but there are many who feel that a match vs. the soon-to-be 43-year-old is a fight no middleweight wants unless they absolutely have to take it.
But not Adesanya.
"The Last Stylebender" still feels like he has something to prove and knocking off the 2000 Olympic silver medalist in freestyle wrestling should silence some of his naysayers.
“I know that a lot of people are embracing me but I still feel like an outcast,” Adesanya said to DAZN News. “I know I belong here and I have proven that I belong here, but I feel like an outcast in the sense that I have to keep repeating myself.
"Every single time I step into the octagon or every time I’m here doing media, there’s a low key side of me that feels like I still have to prove myself.”
Adesanya’s uniqueness may have left him on an island for much of his career, but the consummate showman is slowly being embraced by MMA fans who once doubted him. Not to mention that there are fellow outcasts in the world who have found remnants of themselves in Adesanya and look to him as an inspiration for what a fighter can be.
He’s confident and self-assured but also a self-proclaimed nerd who is obsessed with Anime and dance culture. He recently had to convince UFC president Dana White to allow him to put together an elaborate entrance — something that White has often frowned upon — ahead of his UFC 243 unification bout with Robert Whittaker.
“Dana is just one person but the world is filled with billions of people,” Adesanya said of his desire to have his walkouts be more of a full-blown presentation than a simple stroll to the octagon, like the UFC president desires. “I feel like when you are being yourself authentically, you can tap into something that everyone can relate to.”
The 30-year-old found his flair for entertaining as a young boy watching the flamboyant former champion Prince Naseem Hamed and his wildly creative entrances.
“He was the first boxer that I remember,” he said. “I remember watching him, mesmerized at what I saw, how we came to the ring and did that flip. That was one of my earliest memories of showmanship.
“He owned it and that’s what I’m doing as well.”
Aside from Hamed, Adesanya took to pro wrestling as a means of influencing his style of trash talking and charisma, citing the WWE’s “Attitude Era” of the late '90s as a key source of inspiration.
“Definitely pro wrestling,” he said. “The Attitude Era was my era and it felt so real to me.”
Adesanya runs down some of the more infamous moments and characters from that era — from Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock to The Hardy Boyz — and one thing a majority of those characters have in common is that they were themselves with the volume turned up to 11.
“Some of the charisma that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson has rubbed off on me,” he says. “I would just sit there and watch him. He was teaching you how to put on a show.”
And now Adesanya is the one putting on the show. As much as fans are waiting to see what Adesanya does inside of the cage, they are just as eager to see what takes place before and after the Nigerian middleweight champion hits the octagon.
Whether he knows it or not, Israel Adesanya is inspiring a new generation of fighters who are looking to break out of the ridged box of expectations that the UFC has often enclosed around its fighters. For years, fighters struggled to find their voice in and out of the octagon but have slowly come around to embrace the entertainment aspect of the fight game. Unlike Conor McGregor, whose moves are calculated in an effort to get top dollar, Adesanya’s personality feels incredibly genuine.
“I think young fighters should just be themselves. Cultivate your own identity. Don't look at me and try and be like that,” he said of opening the door for more fighters like himself. “I definitely have looked at guys like Muhammad Ali and Anderson Silva for inspiration, but over time I have cultivated my own identity.”
Adesanya admits that he’s feeling that a victory over Romero could be the moment where he catapults into superstardom and has a reach beyond UFC fans. He already has his sights set on headlining a UFC card at the new home of the Las Vegas Raiders — which will seat somewhere in the area of 70,000 fans — and have the opportunity at smashing gate records in Nevada. But amidst all of the accolades lies the soul of a boy who is simply wants to entertain.
“I do realize that fighting has become bigger than me but, at the same time, I’m just a young kid who is living his dream.”