What happens to the UFC's Middleweight and Light Heavyweight divisions if Israel Adesanya wins at UFC 259?
This March sees a truly blockbuster UFC event in the form of UFC 259. Three title fights pack the pay-per-view card, with the main event seeing UFC Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya challenging Jan Blachowicz for his UFC Light Heavyweight title.
If Israel Adesanya can defeat Jan Blachowicz, then he’ll become the UFC’s latest double champion. But what will happen to the UFC Middleweight and Light Heavyweight divisions in that case?
It’s an interesting question that definitely throws up several different scenarios, and it’s certainly worth exploring.
Of course, there’s every chance that Blachowicz simply makes a mockery of the question by defeating Israel Adesanya. The Polish fighter has been written off plenty of times in the UFC before. And to be honest, nobody expected him to claim the UFC Light Heavyweight title in the first place.
However, the styles of this clash do appear to favor Israel Adesanya, meaning he seems likely to follow Conor McGregor, Daniel Cormier, Amanda Nunes, and Henry Cejudo in becoming a simultaneous double-champion in the UFC.
With that in mind, it’s worth exploring what they did as double champions.
What happened to the UFC’s previous double champions?
It’s interesting to note that of the UFC’s four previous double champions, only one – Amanda Nunes – ended up holding onto both of her titles.
The Lioness won the UFC Bantamweight title in July 2016 and then the UFC Featherweight title in December 2018. Since then, she’s continued to defend both titles – making two defenses at Bantamweight and one at Featherweight.
Coincidentally, she’s set to defend her Featherweight crown again at UFC 259, this time against Megan Anderson.
McGregor was the first double champion in UFC history, but The Notorious One failed to make a single defense of either of his titles.
After defeating Eddie Alvarez to add the UFC Lightweight title to his UFC Featherweight crown, the Irishman famously pursued a boxing match with Floyd Mayweather. That left the UFC with no alternative but to have him relinquish both titles, which were eventually won by Max Holloway and Khabib Nurmagomedov, respectively.
Similar things happened to Cormier and Cejudo, although they did hold onto one of their two titles. Both men dropped the lighter of their crowns – the UFC Light Heavyweight and Flyweight titles, respectively – once they’d captured the title in the weight class above.
For obvious, weight-cutting related reasons, this made perfect sense.
But why has Nunes been able to hold onto both of her titles and continue to defend them? The likely answer is that The Lioness probably doesn’t walk around much heavier than the 145lbs Featherweight limit – making it far easier for her to make 135lbs too.
So what would Israel Adesanya do?
When considering what Israel Adesanya might do, it’s worth considering the issue of weight-cutting.
Thus far into his UFC career, Israel Adesanya has given no indication that he struggles to make 185lbs. In fact, he looks like a much smaller Middleweight than other contenders such as Paulo Costa and Jared Cannonier.
Add in the fact that Israel Adesanya doesn’t seem focused on adding tons of muscle to move up to 205lbs, and it seems doubtful that he’ll be one of those fighters that moves up once and then can’t make it back to his old weight class.
After all, the fighter closest to Israel Adesanya's style and build – Anderson Silva – floated between 205lbs and 185lbs in the UFC for years with no problems whatsoever.
It’s also worth considering the quality of potential challengers in both weight classes should Israel Adesanya end up with both belts.
Ignoring McGregor for a second, it’s quite clear that part of the reason why both Cormier, and particularly Cejudo, decided to relinquish their lighter titles was a lack of competition.
Cormier’s only real challenge at 205lbs was Jon Jones, and given their history – and Jones’ PED issues – it’s unlikely that DC would’ve wanted to face him for a third time.
Cejudo, meanwhile, did have several prospective challengers at Flyweight, but none of them held any “name” value, something that clearly drove Triple C greatly.
Contrast that with Nunes – who competes in two thin divisions but has viable challengers in both – and it’s more understandable that she’d keep both titles.
For Israel Adesanya, then, there are several fresh challengers in both divisions. And given his impressive schedule – he’s fought in the UFC on nine occasions since 2018, averaging three fights a year – Israel Adesanya could easily follow in Nunes’ footsteps.
Does having a double champion do any harm to a UFC weight division?
This one is a debatable question. There’s absolutely no denying that McGregor’s antics in 2016-17 harmed the UFC Featherweight and Lightweight divisions massively.
Featherweight fared slightly better, but only because the UFC had pre-empted the Irishman’s shenanigans and crowned Jose Aldo as the interim champion in July 2016.
As soon as it became clear that McGregor had no intention of returning to the division, Aldo was declared the undisputed champion. And when Holloway defeated him, it was hard to deny him his spot as the world’s best 145lber.
Lightweight, though, remained a mess well into 2018. Tony Ferguson won an interim title at UFC 216 in October 2017 when it became clear McGregor wasn’t returning any time soon, but he never felt like the real champion.
And when Khabib Nurmagomedov beat Al Iaquinta to claim the undisputed title in April 2018, he didn’t really feel like the real champion either, not until he defeated McGregor at UFC 229 that October.
Cormier’s reign as double champion caused no harm to either one of his divisions, primarily because he relinquished the UFC Light Heavyweight title just a couple of months after winning the UFC Heavyweight crown.
However, it is worth noting that because Jon Jones claimed the vacant 205lbs title, there were no questions about whether he was the “real” champion because he’d beaten Cormier twice previously.
Nunes’ reign as a double champion obviously hasn’t affected either of her weight classes negatively, as she’s continued to defend both titles.
Cejudo’s time as a double champ, on the other hand, veered very closely to McGregor territory.
Triple C claimed the UFC Bantamweight title in June 2019 but didn’t vacate his UFC Flyweight title for another six months. That meant that his two potential challengers (Deiveson Figueiredo and Joseph Benavidez) were both harshly forced to fight in the interim before facing one another for the vacant belt.
Essentially then, having a double champion can be a double-edged sword for a UFC weight division.
At best, the champion defends in both weight classes, becoming a UFC legend in the process and shining a larger spotlight on both divisions. At worst, one or both of the divisions end up held up as the double champion chases “money fights” or can’t decide which division to stay in.
So what happens to the UFC’s Light Heavyweight division if Israel Adesanya wins?
I actually think there’s room for positivity in this case. Israel Adesanya has a number of interesting challengers at both Middleweight and Light Heavyweight. He shouldn’t have any problems making 185lbs, and he appears to have an ambition to be an all-time UFC great.
With that in mind, it’s easy to imagine a scenario in which Israel Adesanya becomes a male Nunes – alternating title defenses in both weight classes and becoming a genuine legend in the process.
Is there the chance that Israel Adesanya goes down the Cejudo route and stalls out before making the call on which division to stick around in? Perhaps.
In a worst-case scenario, Israel Adesanya might even try to challenge someone like YouTuber Jake Paul in a ludicrous boxing match.
But equally, there’s just as much chance that none of this happens, and Israel Adesanya ends up being knocked out at UFC 259 by Blachowicz.
At the end of the day, though, regardless of what happens, the UFC will continue to tick on, even if there’s some damage to one of its divisions. It always has, and it likely always will.
The only real question is whether Israel Adesanya becomes a legend at UFC 259 – and whether he continues to write that legend afterward.