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As a new kid on the block in the early days of his amateur MMA career, Israel Adesanya obviously wasn't nearly as good as he is now.
Competing in his first amateur fight, 'The Last Stylebender' was dominated on the ground by his opponent, Adesanya revealed.
During an interaction with Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB, the UFC middleweight champion recalled how he "got humbled" in the fight that introduced him to the world of MMA.
"My coach didn't want me to do MMA but I still went against his wishes because I knew what I wanted to do. It was an amateur fight so (my opponent) took me down a lot. Couldn't really punch me in the face because it wasn't a part of the rules in amateur MMA. He got smacked around on the feet and then he was like 'f**k this, I'm taking him down'. And he just took me down repeatedly, repeatedly," said Israel Adesanya.
After losing the bout, Adesanya realized there was plenty of room for improvement. The following month, he joined the City Kickboxing gym under the tutelage of Eugene Bareman.
"So I got humbled in that fight and I was like 'right, I need to move to Auckland and come train at this (City Kickboxing) gym and really learn the game', and the rest is history."
Watch Israel Adesanya talk about his first amateur MMA fight in the video below (from 5:20):
Israel Adesanya is set to defend his belt against Robert Whittaker in his next fight
Israel Adesanya's next fight will be against Robert Whittaker, from whom he snatched the UFC middleweight title in 2019. 'The Reaper' has since recorded a trio of impressive victories against Darren Till, Jared Cannonier and Kelvin Gastelum.
In the same interview with Mike Hosking, Adesanya also sent a message to Whittaker, claiming that the Australian will "second-guess" himself when they run it back.
"These people don't understand what's coming, right? Robert (Whittaker), the first three moves I make on the chessboard, in our next fight, in our rematch, he's gonna second-guess himself, third-guess himself even," said Israel Adesanya.
While Adesanya had previously stated that he would be ready to take on Whittaker anytime after October this year, it appears that the much-anticipated matchup could well be delayed until 2022 due to COVID-19-related reasons.
