On March 6th-7th, welterweight champion Jan Blachowicz and undefeated middleweight champion Israel Adesanya will battle in the main event of UFC 259. The title fight will take place within the bantamweight division at a tournament hosted by UFC APEX Arena in Las Vegas, USA. The match between the Pole and the New Zealander of Nigerian descent was announced at the end of December 2020. The bout became an early Christmas present for both sets of fans as well as all MMA enthusiasts.
How the fight unfolded
It was announced in 2020 that Jon Jones would be moving to Heavyweight and vacating his Lightweight championship belt. The first challenger for the vacated title was Jan Blachowicz, who had been released by Jones just a month prior and given a decent fight with Dominic Reyes (although Knucklebones). However, Blachowicz knocked out Reyes in two rounds and became the new belt holder.
Undefeated fighter Israel Adesanya called out the middleweight champion Jon Jones long ago. However, after Bony switched divisions, Adesanya did not settle down. Two weeks after his second successful title defence, he also reached out to new flyweight champion Jan Blachowicz.
Fighting
Jan Blachowicz had an excellent performance in the fourth round. After taking Adesanya to the ground, he controlled him until the end of the fight. In this section of the fight, Adesanya was worn down considerably and in the last round he took it to go for his first time over but Jan Blachowicz was awarded first place due to a tie.
However, in the final two rounds of the fight, Blachowicz took charge by taking him down and pounding on his body for five minutes. Fortunately, he was able to submit before knocking Ezerskiy out. Neither fighter fulfilled their promise to knock each other out.
In his post-fight interview with Ariel Helwani on Fox Sports 1, Adesanya was humble. “I couldn’t sleep last night,” the fighter said to Helwani. “The fight didn’t go as I planned and my technique could have been better.” Israel also announced that he will not be challenging anyone at this weight class in the near future and is moving back up to middleweight. Blachowicz paid tribute to his opponent, noting that Izzy hit him harder than he expected.
“I’m ready for my next opponent. But I have a young family and want to spend time with them now,” Blachowicz told Joe Rogan during the latest episode of his podcast.
Bottom line
Before the fight, Adesanya said Blachowicz’s “Polish power” was irrelevant to him. “I’ve already seen Brazilian power, as well as Cuban, Australian and American power. They all have power, they are all the same,” Israel told Combat TV. Well, in the end the Polish one did teach Adesanya a lesson, and it is what he will now remember going forward. And most importantly for his success moving forward is that we can hardly expect him to fight Jones anymore.
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