Coming off back-to-back losses for the first time in his career, former two-time middleweight champion Israel Adesanya put in a sixteen week training camp for his upcoming fight against fifth-ranked Nassourdine Imavov.
“Fighting him and beating him would be a way of just saying, like yeah, you can’t count me out no matter what. I can still take any of the top guys in this game at anytime,” Adesanya said on his YouTube channel.
Fights are often won or lost in the gym. Adesanya left to stone unturned in his preparation for Saturday’s showdown in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
“Izzy is looking good. The team is looking good,”said Adesanya’s coach Eugene Bareman. “I can honestly say that that’s the best camp Izzy’s done in a long, long time.
“We just dotted all of our Is and crossed all of our Ts, so feeling very confident with his physical shape in particular, and mentally Izzy’s always on point.”
Looking back at the training camp, Adesanya characterized it as ‘different.’ He hopes the preparation will lead to his hand being raised this weekend.
“Go in there and do what I do, showoff and get my hand raised,” Adesanya said when asked about the matchup. “I’m just going to go in there and free freely. I just want to go in there and freestyle, have fun and I get the job done.”
