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UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya showed off his grappling skills in a recent tweet.
Adesanya is already touted as an excellent striker and kickboxer. As he plans on moving up to light heavyweight any day now, it is believed that he is working on further stacking his fighting arsenal.
Adesanya is seen showing off a number of takedown and submission moves that can help him in the octagon.
Adesanya is a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with BJJ world champion Andre Galvao, the coach whom he trains with to get better at this form of fighting.
Ahead of their fight at UFC 253, Adesanya and Paulo Costa had engaged in a back and forth about each other's grappling skills at the press conference. Adesanya said that Paulo Costa's grappling "sucked".
Costa fired back, saying Adesanya was like a "kid" in BJJ.
"You’re a blue belt in jiu-jitsu. You cannot say nothing about jiu-jitsu. You’re like a kid in in jiu-jitsu. You don’t know how to do an armlock."
Adesanya went on to win that contest with a knockout in the second round. The fight did not involve much grappling, but one wonders if 'The Last Stylebender' would have proved his opponent wrong.
Israel Adesanya to move up to light heavyweight
Israel Adesanya needs to have BJJ drills up his sleeve even more now that he is changing weight classes. He is set to move up to the 205-pound division and challenge the light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz.
Izzy has made it clear that his goal is to become two-division champion, and then move even higher to go after his longtime nemesis, Jon Jones. Jones is preparing to debut in heavyweight at the moment.
But the middleweight champ has to go through Blachowicz first, who is a world-class grappler himself. Blachowicz has a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Joe Moreira and nearly 40 percent of his career victories have come via submission.
Blachowicz has a total of nine wins that he got by submitting his opponent. Rear-naked choke and armbar are two of the best BJJ weapons in his armory. In UFC, Blachowicz has defeated Devin Clark with the rear-naked choke and Nikita Krylov with the arm-triangle choke.
When that fight happens between the two champs, Adesanya would almost certainly need to be at the top of his grappling game if he wants to go home with two belts around his waist.
