Israel Adesanya’s Head Coach: “Israel Would Fight Stipe Miocic”

[Beetlegeuse]

All predicated on the fact that Jones won't move up to heavy to fight Miocic.

Miocic fights at ~230. I don't know what Adesanya's walking around weight is but you have to wonder what it does to his speed if he fights heavier than 205. Anderson Silva's walking around weight was reputedly 225-230, and he fought at 185, but he weighed in at 198.5 at UFC 200 when he fought Cormier at light-heavy. And lost.

Israel Adesanya’s Head Coach: “Israel Would Fight Stipe Miocic”

Eugene Bareman, head coach at Adesanya's home gym:

“Jon Jones so far has not been willing to go to heavyweight, he’s been reluctant to go to heavyweight? Am I correct?,” said Eugene.

“Well, Israel wouldn’t be reluctant to go to heavyweight. Israel would go to heavyweight and he would fight Stipe Miocic. There you go. We’ll take that fight, Jon Jones. If you don’t want to take it, you can hang around at light heavyweight.”

Bareman continued, “We’ll skip light heavyweight and we’ll take that fight off you. There’s some more bait there so Jon Jones can bite on it and start doing what he does, like what these guys do. But we’ll take the fight. Don’t worry about it, Jon Jones. Let’s stop talking about Jon Jones, let’s talk about Stipe. We’ve got a bit to do. We’ve got Paulo Costa, we’ve got other things.”


I'm not much an authority (wouldn't know a a chicken wing from a kimura from an Americana) but I think Adesanya shows far more athleticism than Jones does. Jones shows a lot of inventiveness but so does "the last style-bender." And Jones does not impress with knock-out punching power, but Adesanya does. Israel won all his first 12 pro fights by TKO (which included his inaugural fight in the UFC) and notably just finished Whittaker with a KO by punches. In fact he damn near knocked him out twice in the same fight.

As for his pre-fight antics, Adesanya still has some catching up to do if he's ever going to be the equal of Anderson Silva.



I swear there's a video of Spider making a Michael Jackson entrance wearing a white sequined top hat and mourning coat (AKA tails), but I can't find a copy of it online.

[Ashop]

I want to see Isreal fight Jon Jones. Then see what happens...