Whereas most debuting UFC fighters make peanuts, Israel Adesanya walked away with six figures following his first look contained in the Octagon.
Right this moment, ‘The Final Stylebender’ is an plain legend of the game and the UFC’s solely two-time middleweight titleholder. However simply seven brief years in the past, Adesanya was simply one other world-class kickboxer making an attempt to make the transfer to MMA. Squaring off with Rob Wilkinson in his promotional premier at UFC 221, Adesanya delivered a spectacular efficiency, battering and bloodying his opponent en path to a second-round TKO.
On the time, most newcomers had been on a 10k/10k contract, which means that you simply’d get $10,000 for displaying up and one other $10,000 should you win. These days, the contracts are just about the identical, although they sometimes begin at 12k/12k.
Nonetheless, the ‘Stylebender’ walked away with way more than that.
“My UFC debut, I didn’t make the ten and 10 like everybody else, I made six figures, after which I made a 50k bonus on prime of that,” Adesanya stated throughout an look on the Pound-4-Pound podcast with Kamaru Usman and Henry Cejudo. “Stole the present from, who was the primary occasion? Rockhold versus Yoel, I consider. I felt like I stole the present, individuals had been speaking about me, and I used to be f*cking on prime of the world” (h/t Bloody Elbow).
Adesanya struggled following his UFC debut
Adesanya was on cloud 9 following his highlight-reel debut, however he shortly got here crashing again all the way down to earth as soon as the adrenaline wore off.
“I’d go house and I’d simply f*cking crash. I didn’t perceive. For me, that’s after I began going to remedy as a result of I noticed, like okay, that is, I don’t wish to say that is unhealthy, however it was unhealthy. I used to be like rattling, I shouldn’t be unhappy and you then really feel responsible for feeling unhappy.”
Adesanya is at the moment sitting on a three-fight dropping streak, the primary of his profession in any sport.
Since arising brief in opposition to Nassourdine Imavov in February, the ‘Stylebender’ has not but booked a return to the Octagon, although he did make it clear {that a} rematch with Sean Strickland is on his MMA bucket checklist.
