UFC Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya claims he can take out the entire light heavyweight division including Daniel Cormier
Reigning UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya believes he can take out every single fighter in the light heavyweight division.
The Last Stylebender is making a move up to the 205lbs division in search of his second title in the UFC. Dana White has recently confirmed that Israel Adesanya will move up to light heavyweight to challenge newly crowned champ Jan Blachowicz up next.
Speaking to ESPN journalist Ariel Helwani, Adesanya said that he is ready to take on anyone in the entire 205lbs roster, including the legendary Daniel Cormier, had the latter still been competing.
In response to Helwani asking him if he thought that Blachowicz is a beatable champion, Israel Adesanya stated that he is fully prepared to beat everyone in the light heavyweight division.
"I can beat everyone up at 205. Every one of them. If DC was still fighting, I'd whoop his a** too. It's not that it was an easy fight but I just have to do my work and I already set my timeline and let me honor that timeline and here we are. It looks like I'm doing exactly what I said I was going to do so stay tuned and we'll see."
Is the potential to fight Jon Jones the reason behind Israel Adesanya's move to light heavyweight?
Israel Adesanya's move to light heavyweight doesn't come as a huge surprise. It is no secret that Adesanya and former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones have been exchanging verbal jibes at each other on social media for a while now.
However, things later got personal when both fighters involved their families in the verbal spat, leading to rumors of a potential grudge match between the pair.
If Israel Adesanya can take the light heavyweight title from Jan Blachowicz when they potentially fight next year, the former lightweight champ may come back to challenge Adesanya for the title that he never lost.
However, Jones vacated the light heavyweight title in favor of a move up to the heavyweight decision. Therefore, he may not be interested to go back down to 205 at the moment.
It will be interesting to see how the rivalry between Israel Adesanya and Jon Jones unfolds in 2021. However, Adesanya must first get past Blachowicz for that to happen.