It’s rare and heartening to see fierce rivals put their animosities aside and unite, and that’s exactly what happened with Israel Adesanya and Robert Whittaker.
Adesanya is set to square off against Nassourdine Imavov in the main event of UFC Saudi Arabia on Feb. 1, to be held at the anb Arena in Riyadh. The upcoming Fight Night event marks a significant shift for the former UFC middleweight champion, as it will be his first non-pay-per-view appearance since July 2018.
In preparation for his upcoming bout, “The Last Stylebender” had enlisted the help of his former two-time opponent, Whittaker, to refine his game ahead of the fight. Their collaboration went smoothly, as there was never any deep-seated animosity between the two, despite their history inside the Octagon.
During a recent interview with MMA Fighting, Adesanya revealed that “The Reaper,” who is fresh off a first-round knockout loss to Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 308, felt the need to revamp his training approach. Initially, Whittaker reached out to City Kickboxing’s Eugene Bareman to gauge their openness to collaboration, and the team welcomed him with open arms.
The Nigerian-born Kiwi found it a pleasant at the unexpected addition of Whittaker to the camp, noting how refreshing it was to join forces with a former rival rather than remaining adversaries.
“Having a guy with his skill set, his experience, a new body, new energy at this stage of your career, it’s always nice,” Adesanya said. “Like he said as well, not many people can understand what we’ve done to get to the point that we had. I was really excited to have him pull up and just share energy with me with the whole team.”
Adesanya went on to say that while preparing to face another skilled striker like Imavov, he found Whittaker’s contributions, even in the brief time he spent at the camp, to be incredibly valuable.
“Of course, even if he didn’t train with me, having him around would have been beneficial to this camp. Because of the energy he brings… But training with him, hanging out with him, moving with him, definitely picked his brain and we just shared a few ideas, but I can’t wait because I’ll go over there and do the same thing and over the next few years, we’ll be linking up a few more times.”
“The Last Stylebender” is experiencing the first two-fight losing streak of his career. The slide started with a unanimous decision defeat to Sean Strickland at UFC 293 in September 2023, a bout in which he also lost his middleweight title.
Adesanya’s downturn continued at UFC 305 last August, where reigning champion Dricus Du Plessis delivered a crushing submission victory.
