Israel Adesanya: Anderson Silva Couldn’t Match Me At UFC 234

Israel Adesanya and Anderson Silva’s fight at UFC 234 had fans on the edge of their seats.

Adesanya was able to best the former 185-pound king via unanimous decision. However, despite being 43 years old, spectators were very surprised with how competitive the Brazilian actually was in the fight. After it was all said and done, Adesanya was honored to have shared the Octagon with one of the legends who inspired him to become a UFC fighter in the first place.

Speaking to “The MMA Hour” recently, “Stylebender” admits the moment is still a surreal one to him (via MMA Fighting):

“It’s still cool,” Adesanya said. “Still very cool. Still kind of surreal a little bit. Because I was watching it myself, there’s certain moments that just, for me they’re like special moments for me because they were sh*t that I kind of like, I already knew and I’ve seen before happen many times with other fighters, Silva’s opponents, and I never fell victim to.”

While the fight certainly was more competitive than expected, Adesanya doesn’t think Silva ever truly matched him during the fight. He pointed to a few instances where Silva actually did catch him cleanly a few times, but ultimately, Adesanya believes he out-classe “The Spider” from start to finish:

“[The fight was] competitive to the point that he brought it, yes, but not competitive to the point that he was matching me,” Adesanya said. “One time he was able to match me was in the second round, and that was because he landed a nice jab, you know?

“Good on him. Credit to him. He landed that nice jab, and he flipped it, it was well-timed, and the second follow up jab was well timed, and he was like oh sh*t I gotta get this guy now. So it was time to put that pressure on him, put the sauce on. And he brought that energy,

“I felt that energy and I was like man, this is how people wilt under him, they don’t know what to do.”