Israel Adesanya revealed he almost competed a second time in 2025.
Adesanya’s lone fight of the year came in a TKO loss to Nassourdine Imavov in the UFC Fight Night 250 headliner in February. The loss marked the former UFC middleweight champion’s third in a row.
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Adesanya (24-5 MMA, 13-5 UFC) ended up taking the rest of the year off and is now set to return against Joe Pyfer (15-3 MMA, 6-1 UFC) in the UFC Fight Night 271 headliner on March 28 from Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle (Paramount+).
“There was no inkling like, ‘I need to fight again, I need to fight soon,'” Adesanya said on his YouTube channel. “I was just like, ‘Nah, I’m going to chill for a bit.’ I wasn’t hurt from the fight itself. I just took the time to just do me. I was going to fight last year, but then I got injured in the gym, and then that opportunity got taken away. It was a short-notice fight, as well, and I’ve never done one of those, so that would have been exciting.”
That short-notice opportunity was against Reinier de Ridder (21-3 MMA, 4-1 UFC), who was scheduled to face Anthony Hernandez in the UFC Fight Night 262 main event this past October before Hernandez withdrew. De Ridder ended up facing Brendan Allen, who notched the upset win.
“RDR on five weeks’ notice, six weeks’ notice,” Adesanya said. “I was already training, so I was getting ready for a fight. So it would have been like, ‘Right, I’ve never done this before. You’re fit, hop in there.’ But then that moment got taken away from me. But that’s, in hindsight, the best thing. Even though I wasn’t happy with it then, it was the best thing.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Israel Adesanya says he almost faced Reinier de Ridder on short notice
