Israel Adesanya has insisted he’s ‘not getting touched’ in his fight with Jan Blachowicz as he looks to become a two-weight champion at UFC 259 this weekend.
Adesanya (20-0) was less than an hour removed from dismantling unbeaten challenger Paulo Costa to make the second defense of his unified 185-pound title at UFC 253 when he was given instructions regarding the future during a car ride leaving from the hotel in Abu Dhabi.
‘I’m not getting touched this fight, that’s my plan, not getting touched like I did in the Costa fight,’ Adesanya told TheMacLife.
‘I didn’t get touched in the Costa but like I did in the Costa fight because I didn’t let him touch me in the face at all. Make sure I don’t get hit and watch out for the body kick.’
A 31-year-old native of Nigeria, who fights out of City Kickboxing in New Zealand, Adesanya is fresh off authoring one of the most dominant three-year stretches to kick off a UFC career that the promotion has ever seen. Since his UFC debut in February 2018, Adesanya is 9-0 with victories over a who’s who in recent middleweight division history