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UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya turned quite a few heads in the MMA community when he announced that he will be moving up a weight class to challenge reigning Light Heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz for the 205-pound title.
Israel Adesanya’s coach Eugene Bareman recently spoke with Submission Radio and shed some light on the latest developments regarding the bout.
Bareman stated:
“There is a pay-per-view in March. We want the Jan fight as early as we can. He (Blachowicz) keeps hopping on about March... at the moment we don’t know which way that’s gonna swing. So it's still in the works.”
Bareman further stated that his team would ideally like the fight to take place on the earliest available February date.
Blachowicz had made it very clear that he had no intention of fighting Israel Adesanya before March.
Jan is expected to become a father in December and has been saying since the start that he will spend some time with his family before starting a camp for the Izzy fight.
Blachowicz won the title in September earlier this year at UFC 253 by knocking out Dominick Reyes.
Incidentally, Israel Adesanya main evented the same card and secured a knockout victory of his own when he disposed of Brazilian contender Paulo Costa.
Israel Adesanya was expected to face Robert Whittaker in his next title defense
The fight between Jared Cannonier and Robert Whittaker at UFC 254 was believed by many to decide Israel Adesanya’s next challenger for his middleweight strap.
Robert Whittaker put on an impressive show and got the nod on the judges’ scorecards against Cannonier.
Incidentally, it was Robert Whittaker whom Adesanya had defeated in October 2019 to begin his reign as the middleweight champion.
The rematch looked imminent, however ‘The Reaper’ made it clear that he had no intention of fighting again in 2020 and that he would be spending the festive season with his family.
Israel then decided to move up a weight class and face Blachowicz for the title.
In an interesting coincidence, Blachowicz, while accepting the fight much like Whittaker, wanted to spend the festive season with his family and agreed to fight only in March 2021.
