Nigerian-born New Zealand professional mixed martial artist, Israel Adesanya has defeated Jarred Cannonier through a unanimous decision to retain the UFC middleweight championship.
Adesanya had fought against middleweight contender Jared Cannonier at UFC 276 at the T-mobile Arena, Las Vegas on Sunday morning.
Since making his debut in 2018, Adesanya has looked better each time he stepped into the Octagon and is still undefeated in the middleweight.
He has successfully defended his title four times on a perfect record of 22 wins and 1 loss which came from the then-champion Jan Blachowicz. On Sunday morning, Adesanya successfully defended his middleweight title for the fifth time.
While Adesanya defeated Robert Whittaker in February for the second time to retain his middleweight strap, Cannonier knocked out Derek Brunson in the second round in February to become the weight’s No.1 contender.
In the last round on Sunday, Cannonier struggled to get a takedown while Adesanya was cautious as the crowd got restless.
Adesanya carried a container to the cage as he paid homage to WWE legend The Undertaker in the most theatrical of his flamboyant entrances. And the champion adopted a kick-heavy approach in the opening stages as Cannonier swung and missed with an overhand right.
The champion then increased the pace at the start of the second round as he easily switched stances to land his ram-rod jab. And just as the Sin City crowd began to grow restless, Adesanya began to put his punches together before the fight was paused when Cannonier was poked in the eye
Though Adesanya landed clean jabs, Cannonier fired back with a flurry of punches but, Cannonier failed to complete a takedown and lost by unanimous decision.
UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya and Jared Cannonier both threw leg kicks in round one without a touch of gloves.
Adesanya threw leg kicks and blocked Cannonier. A wild, winging overhand right was dodged by the champion.
Adesanya switched stances and twitches – not even fully feinting yet.
Cannonier missed with his first leg kick while Adesanya landed an early one of his own.
Both men were very reluctant early, but Adesanya landed a few left hands and more leg kicks as Cannonier stalked forward. Cannonier did land a few leg kicks after about a minute of action.
Adesanya landed a good body kick and used feints to keep Cannonier a bit unsettled. Adesanya started mixing his angles and strikes, but Cannonier did find a home for a few more leg kicks.
- Tags: Israel Adesanya, middleweight, UFC
